What about risks from facial recognition in airports? I’m shocked how everyone just says yes and does the scan. That is going to normalize facial recognition everywhere else including rental housing.
replies(4):
When you rent housing, your landlord is likely to require some identification for a credit check. Your face isn't going to make a difference here, because you already handed him your ID. Where it might make a difference is internal security camera footage: if you let your significant other live with you without paying rent, the landlord will know because her face will be recognized. If you sublet without notifying the landlord, he'll know. If you're running a flophouse or drug den, he'll know. But he already knew who you were before you signed a lease, because ID is more than a face.
This is only true for commercial flights. If you charter a plane you can be as anonymous as you like.
> But he already knew who you were before you signed a lease
Add a single third party, like the police to this mix, and the problem should become apparent. Whether or not my landlord has access to this information is one problem, who they can share it and how they share it is another.
In 2025, when DOGE agents casually committed multiple felonies by exfiltrating sensitive data to god knows who, that should be really disturbing to you. Although, you see to be casually ok with some goomba landlord maintaining a dossier on anyone entering your apartment, so I guess it would be.
My uncle serviced turbines for power plants. Power plants are often in the back of nowhere. He travelled with a few thousand dollars and a revolver into the 1970s.
In practical terms: Not any more.
You must present a REAL-ID compliant ID as of May 7, 2025 for Part 135 (charter) flights using aircraft with maximum certificated takeoff weight over 12,500 lbs [which is almost all of them].
ID is not required for straight Part 91 flights (private aviation), though the pilot or operator has to identify all adults if the aircraft has MGTOW over 12,500 pounds and is operating under Part 91K.
You can remain anonymous if you own/borrow a plane or charter a light plane so long as you operate only from airports where TSA doesn't run the FBO security.
NBAA link: https://nbaa.org/aircraft-operations/part-135/real-id-deadli...
Only the crew is required to validate them and you're not required to pass through any TSA checkpoint to achieve this. The operator is not required to do anything other than manually verify your ID. They do not have to submit your information to any specific system.
> and is operating under Part 91K.
91K covers multiple owner aircraft, and the only implications for ID as far as I can tell, is the technical understanding of who "controls" the flight and therefore who should check the IDs.
> only from airports where TSA doesn't run the FBO security.
The TSA controls all security by law. They usually allow operators to contract with a private company to do screening. Which FBOs are the TSA immediately running security for?
I’ve had metal detector and uniformed security treatment at some other class Bs and even at Wheeling, WV (which was entirely out of place compared to the scale of that airport).
In any case, even if it’s just the crew that has to validate your ID, that still prevents you from traveling as anonymously as you like, doesn’t it?
That might be because the goomba landlord is trying to rent you something while DOGE is part of our government who deported US citizens, completely against their own laws, to be imprisoned in a private prison, without trial, without access to family.
Therefore the goomba landlord is a small annoyance that can evolve into a small problem, and the other ...
The problem is always the same: governments see themselves as above the rules. This is why facial recognition was a big deal in the UK, until the police started to violate on a very large scale what people THOUGHT were the rules they voted in. They had failed to notice the "and violations will be checked by an independent board, so independent it's controlled by the same people controlling the police" part of the law. The government had granted itself, retroactively, without involving parliament, "an exception" (exception that covers like 98% of all facial recognition cameras in the UK) and implemented it on a large scale. PLUS from the locations and view of the cameras it is very obvious the goal is to clamp down on protests, not to stop crime.
Brave new world, etc? Certainly can’t be a Jason Bourne in this situation!
Abuse of this technology is a pox on society. But don't assume that only the government has the ability to abuse.
Drivers licenses mostly use solutions from off the shelf prefers like Idemia with pretty limited capability. Basically they aim to detect duplicate faces and flag for audit and investigation. The photos aren’t a particularly high standard.
Passport and visa photos are better pictures with more strict standards wrt lighting snd size.
You're young then. Flying anonymously was the norm. You could go to any travel agency and buy tickets cash. They had a name on it but it didn't matter, put any random name. Or have someone else buy it and give you the ticket, that was fine too.
Getting past security was back then only about actual security (screening for weapons). You did not need a ticket nor an ID of any kind. Then board the flight with that ticket you had from wherever.
That technically didn't prevent someone from giving away their boarding pass once they had it, of course.
Passport photos were way lower resolution than the high res digital photo I last took for my drivers license. My US passport has a photo on it a decade+ old. Still worked fine.
There are plenty of options states could take if they want - and now that the fed is doing what it’s doing, I bet it won’t take long.