Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Futurism. Source: Stefan Maturen/Getty Images
If you needed further evidence that we’re living in the worst version of a cyberpunk dystopia, immigration officials are now scanning citizens’ faces to list them in government databases.
Don’t take our word for it – just listen to the officials themselves. A video shared by Freelance journalist Brian Allen It appears that a masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is scanning a couple’s faces with his phone.
“It’s not illegal to record,” the woman filming the ICE agents says after the agent points her phone at her. “Of course, that’s what we’re doing,” says another officer.
“Why are you deleting my information?” the woman behind the camera asks.
The officer replies: “Because we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”
“To videotape you? Are you crazy?” Before the clip ends, the woman retaliates.
Whether these two were actually registered in the ICE database is unclear. But the agency is certainly using facial recognition technology in at least some ways. Back in October last year, 404 media informed ICE was scanning suspects’ faces to check if they were citizens, a development by a senior fellow at the Cato Institute Patrick Eddington warned at the time A constitutional crisis may arise.
If what the officer is saying in the video is true, the agency can use the technology to reach out further.
in a case Flagged by journalist Julie DiCaroa woman from minnesota alleged in a legal filing While she was watching them an ICE agent approached her vehicle, addressed her by name, and warned her that ICE had “facial recognition technology”. Three days later, the woman says she received a notice that her Global Entry or TSA-Pre-Check status had been revoked.
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