Washington, D.C. – Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley today joined forces with a bipartisan group of his colleagues to sound the alarm on the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) facial recognition regime in airports across the United States.
Merkley co-led the effort with Senators John Kennedy (R-LA), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Ted Cruz (R-TX)—Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Roger Marshall (R-KS) to urge a thorough investigation by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari into the TSA’s collection of facial biometric data. Their letter comes as a record-breaking number of Americans are expected to travel this holiday season, meaning more Americans than ever before may have their faces scanned at the airport.
“This technology will soon be in use at hundreds of major and mid-size airports without an independent evaluation of the technology’s precision or an audit of whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect passenger privacy,” the senators wrote. “TSA reportedly plans to introduce next-generation credential authentication technology (CAT) equipped with facial recognition at over 430 airports nationwide. Yet the agency already deploys non-facial recognition devices, known as CAT-1 scanners, which are capable of determining if identification documents are fraudulent. 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.”
“Additionally, despite promising lawmakers and the public that this technology is not mandatory, TSA has stated its intent to expand this technology beyond the security checkpoint and make it mandatory in the future. In April 2023, TSA Administrator Pekoske admitted at the South by Southwest Conference that ‘we will get to the point where we will require biometrics across the board.’ If that happens, this program could become one of the largest federal surveillance databases overnight without authorization from Congress,” the senators stressed.
Merkley has been an outspoken and longtime leader in sounding the alarm on TSA’s use of facial recognition technology. This includes leading a bipartisan group of 13 Senate colleagues in a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to urge them to take up this privacy issue in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act earlier this year. Previously, he introduced the Traveler Privacy Protection Act to restrict the use of facial recognition technology by the TSA at airports across the United States. Merkley also documented his own experience “opting-out” of this optional program, traveling from D.C. to Portland.
In addition to Merkley, Kennedy, Markey, Cruz, and Marshall, the letter was also signed by Senators Steve Daines (R-MT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
Full text of the letter can be found by clicking here and follows below:
Dear Mr. Cuffari,
We urge you to conduct thorough oversight of the Transportation Security Administration’s (“TSA”) use of facial recognition technology for passenger verification from both an authorities and privacy perspective. This technology will soon be in use at hundreds of major and mid-size airports without an independent evaluation of the technology’s precision or an audit of whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect passenger privacy.
TSA reportedly plans to introduce next-generation credential authentication technology (CAT) equipped with facial recognition at over 430 airports nationwide. Yet the agency already deploys non-facial recognition devices, known as CAT-1 scanners, which are capable of determining if identification documents are fraudulent. 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.
Nor is this technology foolproof. According to the Washington Post, TSA reported a 3% false negative match rate in identity capture, which would mean more than 68,000 discrepancies daily if applied to all 2.3 million daily travelers. Facial recognition would also fail to stop the hundreds of people who reportedly bypass security checkpoints in a given year.
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. Signage directing passengers to follow officer instructions and step in front of the facial recognition camera is prominently displayed, while the signage for opting out is often strategically placed in inconspicuous locations, making it challenging to read and locate. TSOs are inconsistently trained on how to respond to passengers who request to opt out and have told passengers they will face delays for opting out.
Additionally, despite promising lawmakers and the public that this technology is not mandatory, TSA has stated its intent to expand this technology beyond the security checkpoint and make it mandatory in the future. In April 2023, TSA Administrator Pekoske admitted at the South by Southwest Conference that “we will get to the point where we will require biometrics across the board.” If that happens, this program could become one of the largest federal surveillance databases overnight without authorization from Congress.
We urge you to thoroughly evaluate TSA’s facial recognition program and report your findings to Congress before it becomes the default form of passenger verification at security checkpoints. We specifically request the following:
- Assess the effectiveness, including through red team testing by OIG law enforcement, of the use of facial recognition technology in identifying passengers traveling with disguises or false identification documents, compared to other methods of identity verification.
- Assess whether or not the technology has resulted in a meaningful reduction in passenger screening delays, compared to other likely causes of delays.
- Assess the number of times the system has prevented known terrorists or other individuals on the no-fly list from boarding an airplane and its effectiveness in this regard.
- Evaluate whether the use of this technology would result in or enable TSO workforce reductions or reallocations.
- Evaluate the prevalence and significance of identity verification errors across demographic groups.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of TSA’s communication practices, especially regarding the right of passengers to opt out of facial recognition technology, and make recommendations for protecting individual privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.
- Evaluate TSA’s collection and storage of travelers’ biometric data and determine when and whether TSA deletes this information following passenger verification.
- Identify the cybersecurity and data security protocols that TSA must follow in accordance with U.S. law to protect personally identifiable information and assess whether TSA is abiding by such requirements with respect to passengers’ biometric data.
Thank you for your attention to this matter and we look forward to your findings.
###
English 
Spanish