After catching a flight with JetBlue, Twitter user MacKenzie Fegan noticed something rather odd and a little bit disturbing.
When she reached out about it to the airline on Twitter, it started a conversation about privacy and technology that's gone viral for its unsettling implications.
It turns out JetBlue has been experimenting with new facial recognition technology to confirm passenger's identities as they board flights.
Fegan pushed the question even farther, asking some very pertinent questions about how exactly JetBlue had data on what her face looked like.
Of course, JetBlue's answer did little to comfort Fegan:
Their answers quite seem to be adding up...
Eventually, the JetBlue Twitter account punted Fegan's questions to an article about their procedure.
But the article ultimately raised EVEN MORE questions.
JetBlue continued trying to assuage Fegan's fears by providing additional articles...
...but the articles only made it clear that opting out of the procedure was ultimately ineffective if one was trying to maintain one's privacy.
Twitter was pretty disturbed by the conversation's implications.
Though JetBlue seems to treat this technology fairly casually, many people regard it as a serious issue.
Multiple studies have shown how ineffective face-scanning can be in specific law-enforcement scenarios, especially those involving people of color.
Everyone should be concerned about violations of privacy, even if you have nothing to hide.
If this technology concerns you, the time to speak out about is NOW, because once it's been fully implemented there's no way to "opt-out."
The future is looking pretty scary.
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