Tea at Trianon: Using Your Face As ID

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, December 16, 2022

Using Your Face As ID

We were introduced to this new technology on our trip to the UK last winter. From The Washington Examiner:

Holiday travelers may see a familiar face as they pass through airport security checkpoints this month: their own. A dozen major U.S. airports have allowed the Transportation Security Administration to test state-of-the-art technology that gives airline passengers the option of having their face scanned at the checkpoint rather than handing a driver’s license or boarding pass to the officer for visual inspection.
The rollout of this technology nationwide moves the TSA toward automating identity verification, similar to how Department of Homeland Security agency U.S. Customs and Border Protection scans the faces of incoming and outgoing international passengers.

“Biometric technology has the potential to enhance security effectiveness, improve operational efficiency, and yield a more streamlined passenger experience at the TSA checkpoint,” TSA spokesman Daniel D. Velez wrote in an email. “TSA recognizes that biometric solutions must be highly usable for all passengers and operators, considering the diversity of the traveling public.” (Read more.)