This actually seems like a legit and non-evil use of facial recognition to make it faster to get checked in at the airport.

I disagree with the idea that you need ID to fly in the first place (certainly it has nothing to do with security and is mostly about eliminating a secondary market for tickets), but within the current construct, this is preferable to manual verification and I don't see any additional privacy violation vs what already goes on with air travel.

What if version 2 rolls out to airport wide CCTV and gives them the ability to track eye movements, body language, gait, user emotion from facial expressions, etc. and is captured in excruciating detail after the AI processes it in real-time, then shared with business partners for targeted advertising and stored indefinitely, without your consent?

Would that change your thinking? I’m honestly trying to not see the evil in this tech as it evolves to new use cases and gets smarter.

Obviously I wouldn't support the concept in your example.

My experience with travel is roughly that business travel focused programs (basically tiers with perks) are all designed to make travel smoother and don't come at the expense of sucking up your attention with advertising. Consumer focused travel programs (points) are the opposite, they are the same as grocery store points or whatever and about harvesting your data in exchange for some impossible to use "reward".

As long as these programs stay on the business side, they will be more likely to be about making travel better. When we see them move to the consumer side, they will be about screwing people, and I won't support them. But for now, it's good to call out when they've done something good.

could the ID requirement be to enforce a no-fly list?

> could the ID requirement be to enforce a no-fly list?

In part. I think its also an element of positive bag matching (making sure checked baggage is checked in by the same people that are on the plane.)