Twelve senators are urging the Department of Homeland Security’s top watchdog to probe the Transportation Security Administration’s facial recognition technology, as many Americans prepare to travel for the busy holiday season.
The bipartisan Senate coalition includes unlikely allies worried about the TSA’s conduct, including strange bedfellows such as Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, and Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat.
The TSA has tested the new technology during the Biden administration on passengers for credential authentication and the senators said the agency reportedly plans to spread the tech to more than 430 airports nationwide.
The senators wrote to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari demanding “thorough oversight” of the TSA’s deployment of the facial recognition tech from both an “authorities and privacy perspective.”
“TSA has not provided Congress with evidence that facial recognition technology is necessary to catch fraudulent documents, decrease wait times at security checkpoints, or stop terrorists from boarding airplanes,” the senators wrote this month. “Nor is the technology foolproof.”
The senators also complained that the TSA’s claims that passengers can opt out of the tech do not hold up under scrutiny.
“While the TSA claims facial recognition is optional, it is confusing and intimidating to opt out of TSA’s facial recognition scans, and our offices have received numerous anecdotal reports of Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) becoming belligerent when a traveler asks to opt out, or simply being unaware of that right,” the senators said.
The senators said signage compelling participation is often prominently displayed while instructions on exercising passengers’ freedom to opt out is “often strategically placed in inconspicuous locations.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley knows this firsthand. The Oregon Democrat attempted to opt out of the tech at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last year and faced pushback by a TSA officer who told the senator to step aside while others were allowed to bypass him.
Mr. Merkley joined the Senate coalition with Mr. Cruz and Ms. Warren and Sens. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican; Edward Markey, Massachusetts Democrat; Steve Daines, Montana Republican; Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican; Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat; Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat; Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming Republican; Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent; and Peter Welch, Vermont Democrat.
Precisely how the TSA will respond to the congressional scrutiny is unclear. TSA spokesman R. Carter Langston told The Washington Times the agency declined to comment on congressional correspondence and cooperates with audits by the inspector general and the Government Accountability Office.
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