The U.S. government was discovered to be covertly using facial recognition for immigration, sparking concerns by rights groups and others about privacy and surveillance. 

According to the Los Angeles Times, the US government's Customs and Border Protection (CPB) is using CPB One, a mobile app incorporating facial recognition, GPS tracking and a range of other surveillance and storage tools in order to schedule processing appointments at the U.S./Mexico border.

The application requires users to upload a selfie and biometric data, which are processed using facial recognition technologies. It also collects location (GPS) and device metadata.

Civil and human rights experts are concerned about the privacy and surveillance implications of the system. 

The CPB also stood accused of poor transparency by failing to mention it would be using the app to process asylum seekers and that facial recognition is involved.

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-04/asylum-bidens-got-an-app-for-that-with-privacy-risks-and-surveillance-beyond-border

• https://thenewamerican.com/report-biden-administration-uses-face-recognition-app-to-track-asylum-seekers/

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9655025/Biden-deploys-controversial-facial-recognition-app-track-asylum-seekers.html

• https://theweek.com/immigration/1001197/the-biden-administrations-new-facial-recognition-app-for-asylum-seekers-sets

• https://www.axios.com/border-asylum-seekers-facial-recognition-app-972608b1-1c38-4115-b7a6-b8ddf48fd50c.html

• https://iapp.org/news/a/cbps-asylum-seekers-app-brings-privacy-concerns/

• https://www.biometricupdate.com/202106/cbp-one-app-deployed-for-asylum-seekers-biometric-surveillance-concerns-raised

• https://nypost.com/2021/06/07/biden-admin-starts-using-controversial-facial-recognition-tool-on-migrants-report/