Sen. Markey criticizes proposal by DHS to take travelers pictures at airports

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) blasted a proposal by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would require all travelers, including U.S. citizens, to be photographed upon entry and/or departure from U.S. airports.

“The Department of Homeland Security should immediately withdraw plans to force Americans to undergo facial recognition and hand over their biometric information,” Markey, the ranking member of the Security Subcommittee of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said. “This proposal would amount to disturbing government coercion, and as the recent data breach at Customs and Border Protection shows, Homeland Security cannot be trusted to keep our information safe and secure. I will soon introduce legislation to ensure that innocent American citizens are never forced to hand over their facial recognition information.”

Markey, along with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), has questioned DHS on the effectiveness and transparency of its biometric exit program. Markey has called upon the DHS to provide Congress with information on the agency’s use of biometric identification technology. This comes in the wake of a recent breach of traveler and vehicle images at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), where up to 100,000 individuals had images of license plates and their faces stolen from a CBP subcontractor.