CDT Comment Opposing CBP Proposal to Expand Biometric Entry Exit System
For almost 20 years, Congress has directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to biometrically track the entry and departure of certain categories of non-U.S. citizens to determine when people overstay their visa, and to guard against those who travel with fraudulent papers. CBP has run pilot programs at air, land, and sea ports to determine how to create a responsive system. Recently, CBP settled on the use of facial image capture and face matching at airports to verify the identity of travelers to fulfill part of this instruction. On November 19, CBP issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would force all non-U.S. citizens, including children and lawful permanent residents, to submit face scans and be subject to facial recognition screening whenever they enter or depart the country.
The Center for Democracy & Technology filed a comment opposing this rule change. Although U.S. citizens have a right to opt out of facial recognition screening at ports of entry, in practice this right has been difficult to exercise. And for all those who must submit to such screening, questions about the technology’s ability to work as intended and to provide an equitable travel experience for all, including people of color, women, and young people, remain outstanding. The consequences for travelers in the case of error are significant: if they are not accurately identified they may be delayed, miss their flight, or face a custodial interrogation. Additionally, Customs and Border Protection elected to center this screening around a particularly sensitive form of biometric identifier, facial images, when they could have selected a less sensitive and more effective alternative. CBP also failed to adopt any privacy protections to prevent the broad distribution and repurposing of facial images captured by CBP, so this proposed collection risks significantly enhancing the surveillance capabilities of many U.S. government entities. We also argued that CBP’s expansion from pilot phase was premature as the agency has yet to address outstanding privacy and security recommendations from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which recently concluded a review of CBP’s program.
Coalition Urges Senate Not to Let Companies Waive Financial Regulations for AI
CDT joined AI Now Institute, American Civil Liberties Union, and several organizations dedicated to tech policy, consumer protection, and civil rights in a letter to Senate leadership and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee opposing the “AI Innovation Labs” language in Sec. 10509 of the CLARITY Act.
CDT-led Coalition Calls for Transparency for White House AI Framework
CDT and Americans for Responsible Innovation led a broad, bipartisan coalition of over two dozen civil society groups in calling on the White House to release its Framework for review of frontier AI models.
CDT Amicus Brief Calls on Fourth Circuit to Rein In Geofence Warrants
Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled in Chatrie v United States that the Fourth Amendment protected all cell phone location information, which CDT lauded as a landmark decision, but sent the case back down to the Fourth Circuit to assess the propriety of the geofence warrant at issue.
CDT and Partners Post Floor Alert Opposing CA SB 1013 Automated License Plate Readers Bill
The best way to ensure that Automated License Plate Readers are not abused is to limit the retention of stored data and to keep loopholes to lawful process closed. CA SB 1013 is a step in the wrong direction, and we urge the California legislature to reject this approach.
