'Biometric Exit' Quietly Expands Across U.S. Airports (www.nytimes.com)

The Department of Homeland Security’s biometric exit program—where officers photograph departing travelers and run facial-recognition “facial comparisons” against passport records—has quietly expanded and was formally cleared by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Sept. 15, enabling use at all U.S. airports, seaports and land crossings. The system is already active at dozens of airports: DHS says 52% of departing air travelers are now biometrically confirmed, with 810 million people processed since June 2017 and about 500,000 visa overstays identified. Operationally, CBP typically uses a camera-on-a-stick at boarding gates, and provides a phone app to smaller foreign carriers. DHS states U.S. citizens’ photos are matched to passports and deleted within 12 hours; foreign nationals’ images may be retained up to 75 years. U.S. travelers can opt out and undergo manual visual verification, though some report the process feels coercive or rushed. The expansion matters because it scales automated biometric surveillance into routine travel operations and strengthens immigration enforcement, while raising technical and civil‑liberty concerns. Privacy advocates warn of algorithmic bias and false positives—especially affecting people of color and women—and “mission creep” where images might be repurposed beyond exit verification. DHS defends the program as a modernization of long‑standing ID checks and says systems are secure, but the change shifts more identification work onto facial‑recognition systems at the nation’s busiest transit points, prompting legal, ethical and operational questions about consent, accuracy and retention policies.