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Old Jan 15, 2020, 10:37 am
  #83  
televisor
 
Join Date: Sep 2015
Programs: 1 thousand
Posts: 2,112
Originally Posted by oliver2002
All facial. The chip inside your passport is shielded and cannot be read unless the cover is opened to display the biometric page.
As others have already mentioned, that's not categorically true depending on who made the passport.

But perhaps the more useful thing to know is that for most passports, the payload is encrypted (the key is derived from data in the MRZ, which is why anyone can extract the data on the chip, but only if they get the right data first i.e. name/dob/expiry dates/passport number).

Either way, CBP already have plenty of data for most of us: the GE enrollment photo, passport photos for US citizens (I would be extremely surprised if they didn't use those), lots of border photos for the rest of us, and of course a photo every time you use the machine regardless of nationality (although those are generally of low quality / not necessarily covering your face).

It's a little odd, and disconcerting, that CBP are relying on webcams - compared to the setups used for E-gates around the world (which all rely on the photos stored in your passport's chip, and can be quite finicky despite elaborate lighting setups), but I suppose the set of people enrolled in GE is quite small, and the set of GE users using a specific airport is even smaller, which should reduce the chance of mixups.
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