Surveillance

A young American woman, MacKenzie Fegan, is about to board her plane for an international flight with JetBlue. Instead of looking at her boarding pass, the attendant asks her to look at a camera for facial recognition.

As she takes her seat, she starts to wonder, how did it know what I looked like? And she wonders, "Did I consent to this?".

She tweets these thoughts. The airline responds. You can opt out it says. Obviously this was not made clear at the time because our girl wasn't offered the choice. The airline continues by saying that it gets the information from Homeland Security.

"Wait", she thinks, "Homeland Security know what I look like? Why does Homeland Security know what I look like."

Homeland Security is, of course, the government department set up in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is tasked with countering terrorism, border security, immigration control, cybersecurity, and disaster planning and management.

So she is wondering how knowing what her face looks like is going to help Homeland Security fight terrorism. Because she is a law abiding, food writer. The only way that Homeland Security would have her image would be if they have an image of everyone.

Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the USA security services arbitrary collection of data on all citizens regardless of whether they were suspected of crimes. That was illegal at the time. Homeland Security, the NSA, and the CIA were implicated

A peripheral question is, how many security organisations does the US need? How much is the USA spending on security these days?

MacKenzie also wonders how come a private company has access to her Homeland Security file. Well, the airline go right ahead and assure her that they don't have direct access to Homeland Security, rather Homeland Security make it available to the Customs and Border Protection database. And the airline checks that.

When she asks for more information, MacKenzie is directed to a press release from JetBlue which brags a lot how efficient this new surveillance technique but does not give any information about the process or the consent issue. There is no information on how to opt out or whether the fact that one opts out is recorded.

This happened last week. We don't know how the story ends.

Given the trade in our metadata that already exists, it's not a stretch of the imagination to think that companies will be collecting and trading in our biometric metadata soon too. The internet already knows what you buy online and what you search for online. And your phone company already tracks your movements. Govts already routinely monitor all phone calls, texts, and emails. How long till all this is combined?

This unfinished story raises many questions.

Are we ready for a world in which everything we do and say is tracked and becomes a commodity from which we do not benefit? What happens when there are mistakes?

How much more liberty do we give up, how much surveillance is enough to keep us safe from terrorism? And who keeps us safe from the state, the chief executive of which is presently an unstable authoritarian extremist?