JFK Airport TSA Tries To Punish Passengers For Opting Out Of Biometric Facial Scans

JFK is an airport that does everything in its power to do all of the little things to ensure that your travel experience is as miserable as possible.

Terminal 4 wasn’t crowded. It was the second week of November, one of the least busy travel times of the year, and there wasn’t an overflow of people anywhere except at the security line. The monitors portended an ominous 40 minute wait, and they were surprisingly accurate. When I finally got close enough to the front, I could see why: only about a third of the security lanes were open. No big deal, it’s JFK.

That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that when I finally emerged to the front of the line I noticed that everyone was now complying with the biometric facial scans which confirm your identity. The previous time I had traveled through here there were these little signs posted at each counter informing passengers that they could opt-out and how to do so. This time, those same signs were still there but they were laying face up off to the side of the TSA agent’s counter out of clear view.

When it was my turn, I glanced over at it, read that if I wished to opt out I would only need to walk past the machine and hand my passport to the agent and tell them that I’d prefer a manual check. It was what I did last time, and I attempted to do so again. It was around 2:30 pm on Friday, November 8th in security lane #14. The lady who took my passport was an overweight black woman with a bad attitude.

“Opt out!?! You want to opt out!?!” she queried incredulously.

“Yes,” I responded.

“Ok, then, you gonna have ta wait. I’m gonna have to call my supervisor and you gonna have to wait for him to come over here.”

“What do you mean? I’ve opted out before and all the agent had to do was check my identification manually like they always used to.”

“That’s true, but you have to tell me that before you give me your identification. Once you give me your identification the process has already started and I can’t stop it.”

“But the sign here tells me to hand you my indentifi …”

“Please step aside, sir, and wait.”

I stepped aside. She began processing the passengers behind me. She didn’t call anyone.

“How long is this going to take?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she responded with an attitude and shrug.

“I feel as if I am being punished for opting out.”

“That’s just the way it is. You said you wanted to opt out so now you opting out.”

I didn’t wait to find out what happened next. I know better than to argue with anyone in an airport, so I walked over to the next security lane, butted in front of some lady with an apology — “Sorry, the TSA agent over there was being a dick so I had to change lanes” (she understood) — and went through the process with a different agent who acted professionally and courteously.

But when I informed several TSA agents further on in the security process that I would like to file a complaint, I was simply ignored. One told me that she had no idea how I could file a complaint. Another told me that she would call over a supervisor and then did nothing.

According to TSA regulations, nothing about this experience was supposed to have been standard.  Passengers are permitted to opt out without punishment, and those signs letting passengers know that they have this right are supposed to be clearly posted. But regardless of what the TSA has told congress, this isn’t the case. Opting out of these facial scans is about as optional as not taking the Covid vaccine for state workers in places like New York during the pandemic. Sure, you can opt-out, but you will pay the price. Even US senators are being harassed when they try to opt out of these biometric scans at airports.

There is a card informing you of your opt-out rights here and there’s an opt-out club that you can join here.

But, ultimately, this is the future. Those screens snapping mugshots in TSA lines are merely the first step, and are more than likely temporary. Not long from now TSA will be able to gather all of the info they need simply by walking into an airport.

And for that TSA agent with an attitude, it is I who will probably have the last laugh. Her days of employment with the TSA are likely numbered. I would have thought that she would have been delighted to actually serve a function as she sits in her little box all day doing nothing as passengers stream by interacting with the technology before them rather than the human. Those machines that she rallied in support of will someday soon render her redundant.

We are in the Brave New World.