“The Department of Homeland Security is directing border-patrol agents to screen all foreign travelers with facial recognition tools as they enter and leave the U.S., seeking to identify immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed visas, the agency said.
Expanding the use of facial recognition at border checkpoints will "make the process for verifying the identity of aliens more efficient, accurate and secure," DHS said.
The move, set to take effect in late December, would also create a massive biometric database on non-U.S. citizens that risks becoming a rich source for deepfakes and other cybercrimes, security experts said.
Biometric data can include fingerprints or voice patterns to identify individuals. Initially, the new directive will apply only to photos and at commercial airports. The agency plans to eventually extend the screening to all air, sea and land ports of entry.
"Anytime you collect and build a large, centralized database of biometrics, especially one which can span decades and include data from millions of individuals, it creates the opportunity for long-term risk," said Patrick Joyce, global resident chief information security officer at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.
Under the new policy, announced last week, the photos and data gathered at border crossings -- primarily at major airports -- will be stored for as many as 75 years. Photos of U.S. citizens will be deleted within 12 hours, the agency said.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency declined to comment on the new policy.
The federal government has collected biometric data on some foreign travelers entering the U.S. for decades. The new policy would extend these efforts to include all noncitizens, both as they enter and leave the country.
"The growing use of facial recognition by CBP reflects a broader trend toward biometric security, but it also exposes a serious and often overlooked risk," said Eran Barak, chief executive of data-security firm MIND: "Unlike passwords, biometric data is immutable." That means once the data is compromised, Barak said, "it's compromised forever."
Most foreign travelers enter the U.S. at international airports in major cities, including New York, Miami and Los Angeles, which are equipped with facial recognition technology.
Tom Grissen, chief executive of Daon, a biometric identity verification and multifactor authentication firm, said biometric security for immigration checks involves capturing both an individual's photo and identity card -- typically a passport -- and matching one to the other. That creates a biometric template stored for future matching. At a border crossing, a face scanner matches the traveler against the stored template. "If a bad actor could get away with using an image or video, quality biometric systems utilize photo and replay detection, instantly flagging that it's not a real person," Grissen said.
The systems aren't foolproof. Hackers in 2019 obtained images of travelers and license plates gathered by border-patrol agents in a facial recognition pilot project at a Texas land crossing.” [1]
1. U.S. News: Airports to Use Facial Recognition To Screen All Foreign Travelers. Loten, Angus. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 04 Nov 2025: A3.
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