Oslo Int'l Airport to Introduce Biometric Face-Scanners in Lieu of Tickets

Raising the techno-dystopian nightmare temperature for us boiling frogs, one notch at the time…

Over the Easter weekend, when no-one paid much attention to anything, Norwegian state broadcaster NRK ‘reported’ about a set of new ‘check-in’ facilities at Gardermoen Internationa, Oslo’s main airport.

In line with creepy allusions à la ‘Skynet’, it’ll be possible for techno-fetishists to use their biometric data to board an airplane from summer onwards. As if implanting chips for payment services isn’t absurd enough, we’re now taking the net step.

Read on and weep with me. Translation, emphases, and bottom lines mine.

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Soon Your Face Could Become the Boarding Pass

By Sahara Muhaisen, NRK, 30 March 2024 [source]

If you are traveling through Gardermoen at Easter, you will be able to see these displays at the airport.

Caption reads: ‘Avinor has recently installed four screens at Gardermoen. The screens are currently inactive, but are expected to be operational before the summer.’

Screens use biometric recognition technology—which identifies travellers by scanning their faces—will replace paper and telephone boarding passes.

This type of facial biometrics has never before been used at a Norwegian airport, and it will probably raise some eyebrows when it comes to privacy.

We have spoken to Dorothy Billett, who is assistant airport director at Oslo Airport, and Atle Årnes, who is technical director for technology at the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, about this technology.

Here are four questions that you may be wondering about.

1) What do we know about these screens at Gardermoen?

These screens with facial recognition technology deploy cameras to recognise faces. Two are installed on a fast track, and two on a regular safety lock [so far, these came w/o any scanners, except when entering restricted areas; this passage is very ambibuous].

You look into a camera that takes a picture of your face. This image is stored in a cloud storage service owned by Star Alliance [at this point, there’d be no more debate about ‘privacy’, first because it’s a cloud storage and secondly because it’s owned by a foreign company; the latter implies that data moves across borders to third countries, hence whatever follows below on privacy is—a sham].

The photo is then matched with your passport information and another photo that Star Alliance already has of you [see what I mean: it now takes information from state-issued ID (passport) plus a picture of you owned by a private corporation to fly], through the airline you purchased the ticket from.

‘The photo that was taken of you in the lock at Gardermoen is deleted a few seconds after you have passed the security check without any problems’, says Dorothy Billett [sure; what about the one the airline company ‘already owns’?].

2) Will it be mandatory to scan your face?

No, scanning your face instead of a boarding pass is voluntary [remember Covid Passports?].

Travellers who choose to use this technology will pre-register with Star Alliance and agree to have their biometric data used for this method of identification.

This is a pilot project. Not all airlines at Gardermoen are involved in the project. Only Lufthansa, Swiss, and Austrian Airlines—they are members of the Star Alliance [yeah, just hand over such intimate information to a notionally German-owned, big multi-national corporation, it’s entirely fine and totally sane to do so].

These screens will be on-site for three months, and then the project will be evaluated before it is decided whether it will continue at Oslo Airport [I don’t doubt for a moment it’ll be continued right away or merely moved to a different airport to ‘get more information’].

‘We believe that Norway is a mature country for increased digitalisation’, says Dorothy Billett.

If these screens are to be seen permanently at the airports, there will always be an option to only scan the boarding pass.

‘Facial biometrics must be a choice and an opportunity’, she confirms.

3) What do the regulations say about this?

The Personal Data Act and the [EU’s] General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) govern how sensitive data, such as biometrics, must be processed. Among other things, it is required that the use of biometrics is really necessary [two things: EU regulations—note that this isn’t a law promulgated by parliament—govern ostensibly ‘sovereign’ Norwegian data protection; if it’s deemed ‘unnecessary’, just wait until the next ‘terrorist’ attack, which will solve this problem].

Biometrics can increase security in some very special areas where there are no other solutions [what a pile of stinkin’ horse manure (apologies to horses): aren’t airports already quite ‘secure’? What about the ‘where there are no other solutions’ part in the context of the preceding paragraph?].

However, it is important to avoid central storage of biometric data to protect against misuse. Central storage can, for example, be in a cloud service owned by a business and which is beyond the individual's control [remember, if you use these ‘screens’, your picture will be sent to a cloud storage operated for an airline].

‘Biometrics are the same throughout your life. You cannot replace it to avoid misuse, as you can with a password’, says Atle Årnes from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority [go watch the ‘Gattaca’ movie now].

The alternative is to store data locally in your own passport or mobile phone. This reduces the risk of misuse compared to central storage [ah, this is the play—isn’t it convenient that the EU Commission has reached an agreement on a ‘digital ID wallet’ that no-one needs or has asked them to create last week?]

Today, local biometrics are used at Norwegian airports for border control [yeah, sure, but there’s always customs and police officials present…] When you hold your passport in your hand and look into the camera, the camera verifies that you are the same person as in the passport photo [it’s probably ‘cheaper’ than human labour].

The use of facial recognition technology in public places is strictly regulated since such technology will provide completely new unwanted surveillance opportunities for each of us [‘opportunities’, right; also, strict regulation that is co-governed by the GDPR is, by definition, not subject to any parliamentary or other oversight].

Årnes will not comment on Avinor's pilot project until it is implemented and the Norwegian Data Protection Authority carries out inspections, but he says that they expect Avinor to satisfy the law [which one? Norwegian law or the GDPR, which is not a ‘law’]:

We always ask if there are other ways to do this, for example by using tickets or QR codes [talk about a pox on both houses].

[NRK then moves to ask] Would you personally allow these screens to scan your face when you travel?

‘No, I wouldn't’, says Årnes [which says everything anyone needs to know about these ‘scanners’].

4) What are the benefits of biometric technology at the airport?

Dorothy Billett believes that scanning faces gives travellers the opportunity to save time by not having to show their boarding pass at security checks and boarding [but travellers are at the airport like two hours prior to boarding anyways…]:

It can reduce waiting times and queues for both travellers and the airlines.

In the long run, facial recognition can be linked to other travel documents—such as passports. In this way, travellers will be able to opt out of checking in manually at the counter [here’s a funny name for these ‘services’: Skynet].

‘This could be the start of a total documentation replacement in the future. We want to help make the journey seamless and easier’, says Billett.

[NRK asks once again] Do these advantages indicate a real necessity for collecting facial biometrics from Norwegians?

[Billet] We will not initiate the pilot project until we are sure that privacy is safeguarded, and we receive good guidance from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority. Since biometric consumer technology is becoming more and more common, Avinor is positive about testing this possibility together with the airlines.

[The piece concludes with a poll asking readers about their opinion; the article went live on 30 March 2024, and by 1 April around 5:30 a.m. local time, these are the results:]

‘What about you? Would you use facial recognition technology at the airport?’ Ja = Yes; Kanskje = Maybe; Nei = No. As of this writing, 8,527 votes were registered.

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Bottom Lines

Skynet is arriving.

A quite not-so-brave new world is about to emerge, and it’ll be a kind of techno-dystopian nightmare, esp. as it’s sold to unwitting customers as a ‘new’ and ‘improved’ version of what is known already.

Is there a ‘need’ to actually introduce this technology? Well, depends on who you’d ask.

In some places outside totalitarian hellholes, like the People’s Republic (sic) of China, such technology is par for the course, esp. as it’s coupled with what is known as a ‘social credit score system’ that permits you to enter/leave certain areas, board inter-provincial long-distance trains or flights, and the like.

Contrary to the Western tradition, these notions are implemented left and right. Take, e.g., this piece in The Guardian from last autumn, which documents the use of facial recognition technology in retail complexes (shopping malls) in East London. It is introduced by the quote ‘we’ll just keep an eye on her’.

Virtually the same is happening everywhere, as this piece from the NYT (archived version) from about the same time reports:

Use of facial recognition technology by the police has been heavily scrutinized in recent years, but its application by private businesses has received less attention. Now, as the technology improves and its cost falls, the systems are reaching further into people’s lives. No longer just the purview of government agencies, facial recognition is increasingly being deployed to identify shoplifters, problematic customers and legal adversaries.

Facewatch, a British company, is used by retailers across the country frustrated by petty crime. For as little as 250 pounds a month, or roughly $320, Facewatch offers access to a customized watchlist that stores near one another share. When Facewatch spots a flagged face, an alert is sent to a smartphone at the shop, where employees decide whether to keep a close eye on the person or ask the person to leave.

Mr. Mackenzie adds one or two new faces every week, he said, mainly people who steal diapers, groceries, pet supplies and other low-cost goods. He said their economic hardship made him sympathetic, but that the number of thefts had gotten so out of hand that facial recognition was needed. Usually at least once a day, Facewatch alerts him that somebody on the watchlist has entered the store.

And here you have the partial answer to the question on ‘do we really need this’.

Hilariously, I’d add that the business opportunities for San Francisco-based shops are amazing, and so is the growth potential for Facewatch and their ilk.

Big Brother is Watching You

As to the bigger threat, I’d argue it’s coming from unelected and unaccountable entities, such as the EU Commission. It recently introduced a ‘Digital Wallet’ that will be operational soon. And I’ll let the EU’s website explain this to you:

With more and more private and public services becoming digital, a safe, reliable, and privacy enhancing means of digital identification is needed for everyone…

Your [EU Digital] wallet will allow you to securely identify yourself online when accessing a wide range of public and private services, as well as store, present and share digital documents (which include everything from university diplomas to train tickets) and electronically sign or seal documents.

The wallet will be built with privacy and data minimisation at its heart: You only share the exact information you have agreed to; no more, and no less.

This load of BS is accompanied by the following infographic:

Source. Note that the ‘wallet provider’ has to follow the ‘mandate’ of member-states (that themselves follow the EU Commission’s ‘directive’, as the pop-up clearly shows): it’s another public-private partnership (scam).

No worries, you as a user will be permitted to use your own ‘national’ language and, I’m sure, allowed to customise the background:

There will be EU Digital Identity Wallets in each Member State built to the same technical standards and offering the same user experience and functionalities, no matter where they are used and in which Member State they are issued.

The word you’re looking for is tyranny. This is what this will degenerate into rapidly.

I use the moniker ‘Skynet’ in an allusion to James Cameron’s ‘Terminator’ movies; you might as well throw in ‘Minority Report’ to observe a highly likely version of ‘ze future’ (read mimicking Klaus Schwab’s accent).

Sure, if you’ve got nothing to hide, there’s nothing to fear from such a system, right?

Just consider one thing: these devices record everything, incl. information about you who doesn’t shoplift or the like.

There’s no escaping ‘Big Brother’, to thrown in yet another ‘metaphor’.

Privacy and individual freedom is on its way out; the future looks more and more tyrannical.