Homeland Security Plans to Scan Migrant Children’s Faces to Train AI: Updated
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reportedly intends to photograph the faces of migrant children at the U.S. border to improve its facial recognition technology. A claim that the DHS itself denies.
Update 8/16: The Department of Homeland Security has provided PetaPixel with the following statement:
“DHS does not collect facial images from minors under 14, and has no current plans to do so for either operational or research purposes.”
With that statement in view, the original story is presented below.
A bombshell report by MIT Technology Review says that this program, previously known to the public, will include photographing children “down to the infant,” per John Boyd, assistant director of the DHS’ Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM). One of Boyd’s primary tasks is to develop biometric identification technology for the federal government.
Boyd said at a conference earlier this summer that the department is grappling with a big question: “If we pick up someone from Panama at the southern border at age four, say, and then pick them up at age six, are we going to recognize them?”
This is an area where facial recognition technology has historically failed, as there simply isn’t sufficient training datasets of real-life children’s faces. The existing training sets are primarily low-quality, not very large, and not diverse.
Unsurprisingly, a significant hurdle for facial recognition technology researchers to overcome with children is that there are substantial privacy and consent laws that protect minors.
However, these protections do not equally apply to migrant children.
Boyd tells MIT Technology Review that recent “rulemaking” at “some DHS components” and related entities have removed specific age restrictions for collecting biometric data.
As far as Boyd knows, the DHS has not yet implemented the planned data collection efforts, but the potential benefits to the department are clear. Boyd also confirmed that his office is funding the research project but refused to elaborate further.
“What we’re trying to do is to get large data sets of known individuals,” Boyd tells MIT Technology Review.
According to Syracuse University’s Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse, nearly 340,000 children showed up at the United States-Mexico border in 2022 (data isn’t available yet for 2023). Of those kids, 150,000 were not accompanied by an adult, which remains the highest number on record. As MIT Technology Review explains, even if just one percent of those kids had been photographed, scanned, and subject to the OBIM’s craniofacial structural progression program, the data set would “dwarf nearly all existing data sets of real children’s faces used for aging research.”
The Department of Homeland Security offered the following statement after MIT Technology Review published its report on August 14:
The Department of Homeland Security uses various forms of technology to execute its mission, including some biometric capabilities. DHS ensures all technologies, regardless of type, are operated under the established authorities and within the scope of the law. We are committed to protecting the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of all individuals who may be subject to the technology we use to keep the nation safe and secure.
The statement, notably, doesn’t comment on the specific program in question. Some in the government were unaware of any policy changes affecting biometric data collection on migrants, including children, but others find the child-scanning program unsurprising.
“That tracks,” a former United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent told MIT Technology Review on the condition of anonymity. Every migrant processing center the former agent visited “had biometric identity collection, and everybody was going through it.” He doesn’t recall children ever being separated to avoid biometric data collection.
“The reports of CBP, as well as DHS more broadly, expanding the use of facial recognition technology to track migrant children is another stride toward a surveillance state and should be a concern to everyone who values privacy,” Justin Krakoff, deputy communications director for Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, told MIT Technology Review in a statement. The publication notes that Merkley has been a regular outspoken critic of DHS immigration policies and the government’s use of facial recognition technology.
There is also the issue of consent. The DHS “should have to meet an extremely high bar to show that these kids and their legal guardians have meaningfully consented to serve as test subjects,” says Ashley Gorski, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “There’s a significant intimidation factor, and children aren’t as equipped to consider long-term risks.”
Petra Molnar, author of The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of AI, says, “It’s not an accident” that this child face scanning experiment would happen at the border. Borders are “the perfect laboratory for tech experimentation,” Molnar explains, “because oversight is weak…” The state can “experiment in ways that it wouldn’t be allowed to in other spaces.”
Eileen Guo’s excellent report at MIT Technology Review includes much more information, quotes, and commentary.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
