Opting out of biometrics at SFO
This is the story of how I got my congressperson to convince SFO (San Francisco International Airport) to change their illegal mandatory biometrics collection which was happening in 2021-2024.
I wrote this post because I want to bring attention to what effective letters to representatives can look like for people who've been directly affected by an issue, and to encourage folks to contact their representatives more, because change is always possible. There won't always be a mass campaign form letter you can base your personal letter on (which is what I usually do when participating in those campaigns).
When describing your issues you want to be as specific as possible (dates, location, describe the events in order, capture the behavior of others, and ultimately why this is an issue). Representatives do want to help their constituents, but we need to help them help us. An analogy (based on personal experience) is how when we visit a doctor, we need to give them as much relevant detail as possible, presented in an organized manner, for the best care outcome.
Here's the first email I sent in 2023:
Dear Representative Mullin,
I am writing to you today about how my constitutionally-protected right as a US citizen [1] to opt-out of facial recognition at SFO (San Francisco International Airport) has been denied multiple times over the last few years. I would like to request that the difficulty of opting out of biometrics data collection at airports be reviewed by legislators.
Most recently on date Jan 24, 2023
I was flying from San Francisco to Tokyo, Japan. I made my opt-out request to the gate agents >30 min before boarding, and was denied. I asked again after 10 minutes saying I had a right to opt out and they could not force me to participate, and then in response the gate staff made an announcement over the PA saying biometrics collection via facial scanning was mandatory and no one could opt out. My partner also made an attempt to request to opt out and was denied. At boarding time, we just walked around the face scanners and said we’re not doing it. While they did agree to just scan our boarding passes instead, it was very uncomfortable for us to do something so assertive, and not something I want to ever have to repeat.
And previously on Oct 10, 2021
Before boarding a flight to Toronto, Canada, I asked to opt out of facial recognition at boarding, and was denied by Air Canada staff. They said it was mandatory prior to boarding flights to Canada per CBP guidelines (which is not true). I tried to complain to CBP, but was directed to the Air Canada complaint site. Air Canada responded by offering me a small discount off a future flight.It is very uncomfortable that our rights to our biometrics data are being eradicated. I would like to urge Congress to review the difficulty of opting out of biometrics data collection at airports.
Thank you,
Yomna Nasser
[1] Information from the EFF about opting out of facial recognition at airports: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/skip-surveillance-opting-out-face-recognition-airports
A few weeks to a few months later, I get a phone call from one of Mullin's staffers saying Mullin is very interested in this issue and believes he can do something about it. We go over the incidents and I confirm everything is accurate, and then I let him know I had another issue more recently in which I was detained in secondary screening due to opting out of facial recognition. However, this issue occurred in Toronto Pearson's US pre-clearance area, so I wasn't sure who to contact about it. Here's what I wrote:
I was flying from Toronto Pearson (YYZ) to San Francisco (SFO) on Thursday June 29. Flights to the USA from Toronto have an American bordering clearing area in YYZ, so the flights land in domestic terminals once they arrive in the US, as you’ve already gone through US CBP.
As usual, I asked to opt-out when the border guard pointed the camera at me. When I asked to opt out, he said he couldn’t do the classic documents check (comparing the photo in my passport with my face), and I was sent to secondary screening. This is not normal.In secondary screening, I waited about 30 minutes for an officer to call me up to the desk (around 11:30 AM). He asked me for more IDs than my American passport, and I gave him my Canadian passport. He was aggressive and said the following things:
- He got mad when he asked me why I was opting out and I said “because I think it’s cool” politely. He asked me “do you really want me to write that down as your reason?” I then clarified that in addition to it being cool to exercise your rights, that I had concerns about data collection.
- He said: “You know we already have photos of you? There’s cameras right above you.”
- “There’s no such thing as a right to privacy in America*. We can take away your right to opt out of facial recognition whenever we want.*”
- “You have to answer everything I ask, do you understand you’ve been seized?” (He yelled this, and repeated the part about me having been seized.)
- “You need to learn from me, there’s no such thing as a right to privacy. I’m trying to teach you.”
This whole interaction took about 15 minutes (not including waiting time, which makes it 30-40 minutes total), which is much longer than any manual document(s) check I’ve ever experienced. It usually takes a few seconds. I believe I was profiled and hassled intentionally for opting out.
Please note: Canadian customs is not involved in this case at all, this is only involving American CBP.
* Note: this is not true.
Thanks,
Yomna
A few months later, I noticed there were now signs at all the gates in SFO about how biometrics collection is optional, and I haven't had a problem there since.
What I experienced was relatively minor on the scale of injustice, but it felt important because of the potential long-term consequences around abuse of mass biometric data collection and the rapidly dropping costs of large-scale ML systems for profiling and identifying people.
If you’re a US citizen and feel comfortable doing so, I encourage you to opt out of biometrics collection. And if there’s an issue that’s important to you personally, you should write to your representatives more :)
Find your representatives here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Note: after writing this I've heard from friends that they still sometimes encounter SFO gate agents who think the face scan is mandatory, but upon politely asking them to check with their colleagues, another gate agent will confirm it's optional.
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Thank you to Gaelan D’costa, Stephan Somogyi, Chris Palmer, Noah Swartz, and Jon Wolverton for providing feedback on early drafts of this post.