US Customs Officials Start Taking Biometrics of People Crossing US Border on Foot

The US federal government began to scan the retina and recognize the faces of foreigners leaving the United States on foot. This decision is due to the need to fill the gaps in border security.

The verification system, which began on February 11 at a busy border with Mexico, is aimed at identifying people crossing the border and tightening visa controls, since up to half of foreigners are in the United States with an expired visa, phys.org reports .

Also in December last year, the border service began collecting information about foreigners traveling to the US through the Otey Mesa checkpoint connecting Tijuana and San Diego.

Congress has long demanded the introduction of biometric screening - the collection of fingerprints, images of faces or scans of the retina, but the huge financial and logistical costs did not allow this. In turn, human rights activists are worried that biometric data collected in this way may fall into the hands of third parties.

Authorities will test all of these methods to determine which technology is the fastest, most accurate, and least intrusive. Final results are expected this summer, which in the future, on the basis of the data obtained, will allow the introduction of such checks at all checkpoints.

“All we want to know is when a person entered the country and when he left its territory,” commented Michelle Rodriguez, deputy director of the Otey Mesa checkpoint.

A twenty-nine-year-old truck driver from Tijuana by the name of Ramon Rangel was cycling through the Otey Mesa point. To begin with, border guards scanned his documents, after which they asked to stand on a special mark and look at the green light that registered the retina and facial features. It took several seconds to verify the information received with the documents. “I was surprised by such innovations, but I think it’s a good idea,” said Rangel, who regularly crosses the border, and noted that this procedure did not take much time.


A customs officer helps a man from China scan his documents while the camera scans the retina and facial features (February 18, 2016)

Jay Stanley, a senior political analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said data will be synchronized with data from various institutions as soon as this becomes the norm. Other countries may also begin to use this technology and, based on American experience, build their own biometric bases.

There are fears that an additional check will overload the already clogged checkpoints. Customs officers say that the check takes only a few seconds and so far no complaints have been received. Marco Cruz, a fifty-seven-year-old resident of Tijuana, crosses the border two to three times a week. He confirmed that this verification procedure does not slow down the process. “It's good until everything is quick and easy,” he said.

The border crossing point “Otey Mesa” was chosen because it is one of the busiest and the authorities wanted to see how the technology will show itself in such conditions. US border guards take three different approaches. Some foreigners will be sent to scan the face and retina. Others will be asked to stop and just look at the camera, and the third group will show a spread of their documents and look at the camera. Americans leaving the United States will move in a separate lane where border guards will collect information about their biography, date of birth, etc., but will not take biometric data.

While technological innovations will be applied only to foreigners, the spread of such practices to US citizens is in question.