TSA's Face Scanner Is "Optional" — But Only 1% of Travelers Are Told

The next time you're at airport security, the officer waves you toward a camera. You step up. It scans your face. What almost nobody tells you — you could've said no. In tests, only about one in a hundred travelers was told out loud that the face scan was optional.

The scan is voluntary

So the scan is voluntary. Legally, you can refuse it, no penalty, no delay. But if the officer never says a word about it — is it really a choice? If you've ever flown, or you're planning to this year, this is about you. Your face, at the checkpoint, in a government system. Facial recognition is now running at more than sixty-five U.S. airports. And another program runs by default at over three hundred fifty airports — no sign-up, no prompt, no warning. The question threading through this whole episode: what does "optional" mean when almost no one knows the option exists?

Start with that one-in-a-hundred number. Privacy researchers watched how the checkpoints actually work. On paper, T.S.A. says you can decline. In practice, almost no traveler hears that from the officer standing in front of them. That gap is the whole story. A right you don't know you have isn't really a right you can use. For most people, the scan just happens. You look at the camera because that's what the line is doing.

Now, even a federal watchdog raised a hand here. In 2025, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board told T.S.A. to do better. They said the agency needs clearer signs. Better-trained staff. An honest check on whether officers are actually telling people about the opt-out. When a government privacy board says your transparency isn't good enough — that tells you something about the gap between the policy and the checkpoint.

There's also a fairness problem baked into the

There's also a fairness problem baked into the technology itself. Back in 2019, the National Institute of Standards and Technology — a federal lab that tests this stuff — ran the numbers. They found these algorithms misidentify people at different rates. False matches showed up more often for Asian and African American faces than for white faces. So think about who bears the cost when the machine gets it wrong. If the scan fails you more often, is "optional" the same choice for you as for the person behind you?

And here's where the word "optional" starts to wobble. T.S.A. Administrator David Pekoske has laid out a plan to eventually require biometrics to fly. Required. Not optional. So today's voluntary scan may just be the warm-up act. The infrastructure gets built now. The mandate comes later.

To be fair, T.S.A.'s answer is simple. They say declining causes no delay and no penalty. And they say your photo isn't stored after a successful match — except in limited testing. The camera confirms you match your I.D., then lets the image go. That's a real function, and the deletion matters.