MISSOULA, Mont. — The Thanksgiving travel surge is on, and Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines is raising concerns over new technology in the nation’s airports.
Daines is among a bipartisan group of senators who wrote a letter asking the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to “thoroughly evaluate TSA’s facial recognition program.”
The letter questions the necessity of facial recognition in airports and highlights potential plans to eventually make the technology mandatory. The technology is currently in 84 airports with plans to expand to more than 400, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
The Missoula Montana Airport is one of five Montana airports already using facial recognition. Airport director Brian Ellestad used the technology when he flew earlier this fall.
“They take a look at your driver’s license, make sure you’re the traveler, and they have you line up with the camera,” Ellestad said. “It’s very harmless and easy, but again you can choose to opt out of it.”
The pictures are not stored after instantly verifying a passenger’s identity, according to TSA. Passengers can also opt out; however, Daines and other senators described that process as “confusing and intimidating” in their letter, citing anecdotal reports.
NBC Montana reached out to TSA to learn more about the technology. The agency is not commenting on correspondence between Congress and the inspector general, a spokesperson wrote via email.
The TSA spokesperson provided the following statement:
“TSA always welcomes robust, objective external review on the implementation of this technology because it strengthens the public confidence in the technology. We do not do our own testing; our testing is done outside of TSA. At TSA, we put privacy protections in place at the forefront of testing.”
