TSA Facial Recognition Is Being Rolled Out at More U.S. Airports.

More airlines and airports are testing facial recognition technology that automates this process in a bid to decrease the time spent at ID checks and keep up with the growing demand for air travel in the US.

Last week, United Airlines joined Delta Air Lines in testing facial recognition technology on PreCheck travelers in conjunction with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) through an initiative called TSA PreCheck Touchless Identity Solution.

United and Delta passengers with TSA PreCheck can consent to the technology at seven U.S. airports: Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), LaGuardia Airport (LGA), and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) with Delta Air Lines, and at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and O’Hare International Airport (ORD) with United Airlines.

Clear, the $189-a-year membership that allows enrolled travelers to cut to the front of airport security lines, has also begun using facial recognition technology at its checkpoints.

Biometric technology is replacing the need for passports at the world’s most modern airports.

The TSA explains on its site that the information is converted to an “anonymized format” before being encrypted and transferred over to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science & Technology Directorate (S&T) for a “temporary analysis,” with the DHS deleting the data within 180 days.

“Deprecate” seemed an odd word to use, didn’t it? “We’ll be deprecating Facebook news” declared Meta this week, as a way of announcing it would close its dedicated news tab in April.

The practical meaning of this is that Facebook will not renew its contracts with news organizations whereby it pays for the news content that appears on the site. That’s obviously significant news for anyone who cares about journalism, but even so, I found myself stuck on the verb. So I looked it up.

Here, there’s an overlap with the word’s traditional meaning of belittling or disapproving of something. Turns out it’s the perfect word for Facebook to use because at the center of its decision is one blunt calculation: that as far as Facebook content goes, news just isn’t that valuable.

And so, in one country after another — the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Australia — where it has been forced to pay for this content, it has now concluded the price isn’t worth paying. Facebook is quite literally belittling the worth of news.

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