ktlight
22nd July 2011, 20:24
FYI:
In addition to full body scanners and enhanced grope downs, the latest big brother nightmare to hit airports comes in the form of biometric facial recognition cameras, set to be rolled out in terminals at London’s Heathrow Airport in September.
After an eighteen month trial, the Aurora Imaging Recognition (AIR) biometric system with enhanced image infrared cameras has been approved for use in the airport at terminals 1 and 5, reports the London Evening Standard.
Heathrow Skyport describes the process that travelers will have to undergo after the system is adopted:
Passengers are enrolled into the system and the biometric photo is linked with the boarding pass number on entry into the common user lounge, otherwise known as the departure lounge, at the first security check point.
Each passenger is then verified against their previous enrolment when the airside area before heading towards their departure gate.
It has the ability to identify people from a distance of 40cm to one metre, meaning that personal space is not imposed upon, and has been designed for people of different heights, including wheelchair users and children.
Tests conducted by the independent airport operator BAA and the UK Border Agency found that each face scan takes approximately 4-5 seconds.
There is no indication that anyone will be allowed to opt out of the procedure, meaning that for all travelers it will be compulsory to have a face scan and be added to the database in order to fly out of the terminal.
The justification for the system is to prevent passengers swapping tickets in the departure lounge, potentially allowing an international passenger to fly domestically, thus bypassing immigration checks.
The operators also say that the system will “help identify potential terrorists”, however it is not clear how this is possible given that they also claim that all data collected will be stored for up to 24 hours and then destroyed.
It is exactly this kind of loose justification and the bandying about of the word “terrorism” to sell nothing more than pure security theatre that has led to such a rampant backlash against the TSA takeover in the US.
source
http://www.prisonplanet.com/legions-of-biometric-face-scanning-cameras-to-be-installed-at-heathrow-airport-within-weeks.html
In addition to full body scanners and enhanced grope downs, the latest big brother nightmare to hit airports comes in the form of biometric facial recognition cameras, set to be rolled out in terminals at London’s Heathrow Airport in September.
After an eighteen month trial, the Aurora Imaging Recognition (AIR) biometric system with enhanced image infrared cameras has been approved for use in the airport at terminals 1 and 5, reports the London Evening Standard.
Heathrow Skyport describes the process that travelers will have to undergo after the system is adopted:
Passengers are enrolled into the system and the biometric photo is linked with the boarding pass number on entry into the common user lounge, otherwise known as the departure lounge, at the first security check point.
Each passenger is then verified against their previous enrolment when the airside area before heading towards their departure gate.
It has the ability to identify people from a distance of 40cm to one metre, meaning that personal space is not imposed upon, and has been designed for people of different heights, including wheelchair users and children.
Tests conducted by the independent airport operator BAA and the UK Border Agency found that each face scan takes approximately 4-5 seconds.
There is no indication that anyone will be allowed to opt out of the procedure, meaning that for all travelers it will be compulsory to have a face scan and be added to the database in order to fly out of the terminal.
The justification for the system is to prevent passengers swapping tickets in the departure lounge, potentially allowing an international passenger to fly domestically, thus bypassing immigration checks.
The operators also say that the system will “help identify potential terrorists”, however it is not clear how this is possible given that they also claim that all data collected will be stored for up to 24 hours and then destroyed.
It is exactly this kind of loose justification and the bandying about of the word “terrorism” to sell nothing more than pure security theatre that has led to such a rampant backlash against the TSA takeover in the US.
source
http://www.prisonplanet.com/legions-of-biometric-face-scanning-cameras-to-be-installed-at-heathrow-airport-within-weeks.html