US Border Officials Seek Real-Time Facial Recognition for Vehicle Passengers

The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is advancing its border security measures by seeking new facial recognition technology designed to capture live images of every person entering the country by car. This initiative aims to enhance the agency’s biometric verification capabilities at land ports of entry, complementing existing systems used at airports and pedestrian crossings.

CBP’s Office of Field Operations Biometric Program Office recently issued a Request for Information (RFI) inviting vendors to provide technology capable of capturing high-quality facial images inside vehicles in real time. These images would be matched against the Traveler Verification System, a facial recognition database already in use by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The proposed system would operate in two stages: first, vehicles enter a Pre-Primary Zone where live photos are compared to existing government records; then, in the Primary Zone, new images are captured and analyzed for any passengers not previously biometrically confirmed. The technology must provide real-time feedback and be capable of filtering out non-human objects such as pets or printed images.

This effort builds on prior DHS experiments with facial recognition at vehicle crossings dating back to 2016, including tests at several international bridges. While these tests met many objectives, challenges remain in consistently capturing usable images due to environmental factors and passenger behavior, with only about 76% of pictures obtained and 81% deemed usable in one documented trial.

Privacy advocates express concern that expanding facial recognition to vehicles could create a pervasive surveillance network tracking individuals’ movements and associations. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that combining facial recognition with automated license plate readers could enable detailed monitoring of who is traveling, where, and with whom, raising significant civil liberties issues.

CBP’s RFI acknowledges these challenges and aims to improve image capture rates to cover 100% of vehicle passengers. The agency is open to both passive and officer-activated systems that can handle difficult conditions such as passengers wearing hats or sunglasses, or not facing the camera directly.

As CBP seeks to expand biometric surveillance at the border, the balance between security and privacy remains a critical concern. The deployment of real-time facial recognition in vehicles represents a significant technological leap with broad implications for civil liberties, data security, and the future of border enforcement.