.Algorithmic Justice League has been sounding the alarm about new TSA tactics to scan your face during international travel. Today, boarding an intl flight at Boston Logan, TSA tried to scan my and Yara Liceaga-Rojas faces - but we knew we could opt out! See for more info.

Of a hundred plus people on this flight, I'm sure we were the only ones to opt out. The officers waited by the plane door, requested passports, and scanned everyone's face with cell phones without saying anything else about it. No fancy face scanning machines, just a mobile app.

*Note that this is Customs and Border Patrol, not TSA.

When Yara asks 'what is this for?' the agent says it's to "Match your face to your passport, to crack down on people stealing documents." When I ask if we can opt out, he says "sure, if you're a US Citizen." We both say we'd like to opt out, he snaps passports but not faces.

Now, we already know about disparate accuracy of facial recognition technologies (FRTs) by skin tone and gender. So let's think about how this disparity will produce disproportionate false negatives (failure to match) between faces and passport pics. Who will be affected most?

Our flight is taking off, more on the other side! Stay safe, and remember, kids: don't let em snatch your face!

Share your own experiences with face scans at airports this summer with #InPlaneSight, and/or via

If you're thinking 'I don't see why this might cause problems,' please take the time to educate yourself about some of the ways this biased technology has been used in harmful ways.

Also, do you really want your face print stored in another massive database that will probably be hacked at some point in the next few years?

They are presumably doing this to build a database to further train 1:1 real-time matching face recognition systems for public places, which are illegal under EU law

Update: returning to the USA via Boston Logan, in the immigration line for US Passport holders, they are scanning everyone's face using a mounted camera connected to immigration agents' computers. You can opt out, we did. They requested a second form of ID, MA license worked.