The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking into ways it might use facial recognition technology to track the identities of migrant children, “down to the infant,” as they age, according to John Boyd, assistant director of the department’s Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM), where a key part of his role is to research and develop future biometric identity services for the government.
As Boyd explained at a conference in June, the key question for OBIM is, “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?”
Facial recognition technology (FRT) has traditionally not been applied to children, largely because training data sets of real children’s faces are few and far between, and consist of either low-quality images drawn from the internet or small sample sizes with little diversity. Such limitations reflect the significant sensitivities regarding privacy and consent when it comes to minors.
According to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), 339,234 children arrived at the US-Mexico border in 2022, the last year for which numbers are currently available. Of those children, 150,000 were unaccompanied—the highest annual number on record. If the face prints of even 1% of those children were in OBIM’s craniofacial structural progression initiative, the resulting data set would dwarf nearly all existing data sets of real children’s faces used for aging research.
Prior to publication of this story, Boyd told MIT Technology Review that to the best of his knowledge, the agency has not yet started collecting data under the program, but he adds that as “the senior executive,” he would “have to get with [his] staff to see.” He could only confirm that his office is “funding” it. Despite repeated requests, Boyd did not provide any additional information. After publication, DHS denied that it had plans to collect facial images from minors under 14.
Boyd described recent “rulemaking” at “some DHS components,” or sub-offices, that have removed age restrictions on the collection of biometric data. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the US Transportation Security Administration, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment before publication. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) did not respond to multiple requests for comment. OBIM referred MIT Technology Review back to DHS’s main press office.
Read More: The US wants to use facial recognition to identify migrant children as they age