Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) products on display at a technology conference. Image from brookings.edu
SEATTLE — The Department of Homeland Security plans to collect and analyze photographs of migrant children at the border in an effort to improve facial recognition technology.
The department hasn't yet begun collecting data under the proposed program, MIT Technology Review reported, but John Boyd, deputy director of the department's Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM), said it's unclear how far the plan has gone. As part of his job, and despite repeated requests for information, Boyd could only confirm that his department is funding the project.
Boyd previously helped develop the Department of Defense's biometric systems in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has acknowledged that despite the enormous risks, individuals are not afforded the privacy protections they would be afforded in many other situations.
Facial recognition technology (FRT) has not been applied to children because datasets of actual children's faces are scarce and consist of either low-quality images taken from the internet or small sample sizes with little diversity. Such limitations reflect significant privacy and consent sensitivities when it comes to minors.
According to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), more than 339,000 children arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 alone, the last year for which data is currently available. Of those, 150,000 children were unaccompanied, the highest annual number on record.
According to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 65% of unaccompanied children encountered at the border in fiscal year 2023 were under the age of 17, and 19% of the total were children between the ages of 0 and 12. The top three countries with the highest percentage of children in fiscal year 2023 were Guatemala, followed by Honduras and El Salvador.
In addition to concerns about privacy, transparency and accountability, some experts also worry about using data from populations that have little recourse to give or refuse consent to test and develop new technologies.
Boyd said the plan to collect facial images of children under the age of 14 was made possible by recent “rulemaking by certain departments of the Department of Homeland Security” that removed age restrictions on the collection of biometric data. He spoke publicly about the project in June at the Federal Identity Forum & Exposition, an annual identity management conference for federal employees and contractors.
The Biometrics Authority was established after 9/11 with the goal of collecting only fingerprints and photographs from all non-U.S. citizens seeking entry into the United States.
But since then, DHS has begun collecting facial fingerprints, iris and retina scans, and even DNA. According to Boyd's remarks at the June conference, DHS has also implemented new methods of collecting this data, including contactless fingerprinting, which is now being used at five locations on the border.
Since January 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has added 1.5 million DNA profiles, primarily of migrants crossing the border, to its law enforcement database, according to a study by the Georgetown Law School's Center on Privacy and Technology.
“It's no coincidence that these experiments are taking place in border areas,” says Petra Molnar, author of The Wall Has Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. She adds that the border is “the perfect laboratory for technological experimentation” because the lack of oversight allows governments to experiment in ways “that wouldn't be allowed anywhere else.”
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