Border Agency Eye Scan Flaws Expose Government AI Risks: Report

U.S. Customs and Border Protection ditched a plan to use iris scanning to track people coming in and out of the country after a federal contractor couldn’t explain flaws in the technology. The agency switched gears instead to facial recognition, a move that independent reviewers say highlights the risks and opportunities that come with the growing use of artificial intelligence in the federal government.

The border agency wasn’t able to fully understand what went wrong with the scans, meant to use unique patterns in travelers’ irises to confirm their identities against their identification documents, according to internal agency records. That’s ...