I didn't know this was an option, there was no signage, no one told me about it at the airport.

I encourage you guys to exercise this right, if everyone gives in (goes along with getting their pictures taken), it makes us all more vulnerable for our personal digital data to be exploited by corrupt gov't and bad actors

How to opt out of facial recognition at the airport

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/07/29/airport-facial-recognition-scan-opt-out/

And why TSA face scans that are optional on paper can feel mandatory in practice.

Updated July 29, 2025

5 min

Security screening at Miami International Airport includes facial recognition technology.

(Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group Editorial/Getty Images)

Analysis by Shira Ovide

You typically have the right to opt out of having your face scanned at airports.

And it’s worth doing.

That’s your summer travel advice from Joy Buolamwini,

 a pioneering artificial intelligence researcher and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL),

 an organization that highlights the harms of AI.

For the past few years, TSA checkpoints at a growing number of

airports in the United States have been snapping images of travelers’

faces and using facial recognition technology to ensure the face matches the person’s photo identification.

The TSA has said facial recognition ID checks are faster and more accurate than agents comparing your face to your ID,

 as we’ve done at airport security for years.

The agency hasn’t provided public evidence of that.

Buolamwini questions why what the TSA calls a voluntary facial recognition pilot project instead feels coercive,

 compulsory and permanent.

I’ll explain your rights with facial recognition scans at security and other airport locations.

Two years after a U.S. senator said he got pushback for opting out of TSA facial recognition,

 there remains evidence that the airport scans are optional on paper but not in practice.

The TSA didn’t respond to my questions.

Your rights with airport facial recognition

In TSA security lanes, you might be asked to step up to a camera that snaps your image.

Facial recognition technology compares the snapshot to your ID photo to verify that the two images match.

Other checks are happening behind the scenes,

 too.

TSA policy says that any traveler, even if you’re not an American citizen,

 can opt out of this without encountering delays or added security screening.

Instead, the TSA agent will look at your face to make sure it matches your photo ID.

On Instagram, Buolamwini showed her recommended opt-out process.

She avoids standing in front of the facial recognition ID camera as she approaches the TSA officer at their station.

Buolamwini said she typically wears a face covering to avoid an unexpected image snap.

Then before handing over her ID, Buolamwini says she tells the TSA agent,

 “I’d like to opt out of facial recognition.”

(I say to TSA officers, “I prefer a standard ID check.”)

Once you’re at the airport gate, facial recognition might also

be used to verify your identification as you’re boarding an international flight.

If you’re a U.S. citizen, you can opt out here,

 too, though you will need to approach the gate agents’ desk to do so ahead of time,

 said Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

If you’re not a U.S. citizen, he said,

 you must comply with these gate facial recognition ID checks.

It’s a similar opt-out policy for citizens and noncitizens at

conventional Customs airport border checkpoints using facial recognition technology,

 Venzke said.

If you prefer facial recognition at the airport,

 go for it.

Critics of the TSA face scans say, however,

 that the choice to go along or decline isn’t an equal option for everyone.

“Flying is so fraught that even when people have rights they’re terrified to exercise them,” said Albert Fox Cahn,

Source comment executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project,

 a privacy rights advocacy group.

The TSA and a travel industry group say that face scans can remove

some flying hassles and that TSA’s facial recognition technology is highly accurate.

Cahn and other skeptics say that even a tiny error rate could

incorrectly flag thousands of travelers a day as not matching their ID photo or let nefarious people slip through.

They worry, too, that TSA might make facial recognition mandatory to fly.

And while the TSA says it mostly doesn’t save your face images,

 government agencies are finding ways to repurpose people’s data.

The problems with opting out

Buolamwini’s organization, a government privacy agency and news

reporting have found that some people don’t know they can decline the airport scans or encounter hassles when they do.

The AJL released a report Tuesday of traveler anecdotes,

 including some from people who said they encountered intimidation or disrespect from TSA agents when they opted out.

(The identities of the AJL respondents were not shared with The Washington Post or the public.

I couldn’t verify the accounts.)

In a May report from the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board,

 the privacy watchdog also said that TSA agents “may not be uniformly implementing this opt-out policy.”

Though government complaint forms for travelers don’t include categories about facial recognition,

 the board said it found at least 97 reported concerns or complaints referencing the technology,

 including a lack of required opt-out notices at TSA checkpoints

or TSA agents giving inaccurate information about your right to decline.

On Wednesday, a Senate committee is taking a first step on a

proposed law that would require the TSA to ask for your explicit permission to use facial recognition at security,

 unless you’re in a program like TSA PreCheck.

The bill also would impose restrictions on TSA’s use of data.

Some of us have voluntarily handed over our image or fingerprint for traveler programs such as PreCheck,

 and there’s lots of other surveillance at airports.

Buolamwini says it’s still worth opting out of facial recognition

technology to signal that the scans shouldn’t be required to fly or to simply roam in public.

“When you opt out, it’s not just for you,” she said.