Your Face is Your Passport, Now What Else Can We Use it For?

Everyday there is something new in the news about biometrics and it all keeps heading in the same direction. Here is where we are going, in the future your ability to travel will require that you have been biometrically, positively identified and authorized. No fly lists are already in effect. I personally am on a watch list (not a no fly list as far as I know). Yet, how much concern does the average person have over the fact that we have these lists, they will not tell you are on one and there is nothing you can do to get removed from them.

EndTheLie - Facial recognition-based border control system in Netherlands to process millionth passenger by end of year


There are many people who are afraid that the government wants to put a chip in us, an RFID chip to be precise. The same chip that is in your cell phone, your car, your dog and your passport. The idea biometrics is therefore much more pleasant; but, the effect is exactly the same, you can be monitored and prevented from traveling.

I will tell a story that I wrote about once before. I was going to Hawaii a number of years ago right after the shoe bomber. As we were going through security the TSA agent asked me if I wanted to take off my shoes. I asked them if it was required and they told me it was not, so, I said I would prefer to keep them on. I was taken out of line and told that I had to take my shoes off and checked out further. I asked what type of game they were playing and asked why they hadn't just told me it was required if it was. The answer was as stupid as possible, I was told it wasn't required but that if someone didn't then they were given additional checks which included removing their shoes. It was funny how the other people all got anxious as I questioned these people.

Biometrics and facial recognition are only a carrot if you have a stick and the stick is the RFID chip. Fear and hatred of the chip convince people to accept the same result by means of another technology.