Is this an invasion of privacy or fair practice to protect our country? Former DHS oversight counsel Mike Howell weighs in. The Trump administration announced Thursday that it's backing away from a proposal that would have required all U.S. citizens to submit to facial recognition scans at airports and other ports of entry whenever they leave or enter the country. The Department of Homeland Security said it removed the idea from its regulatory agenda following meetings with advocates and lawmakers who voiced serious privacy concerns for American citizens. U.S. passport holders can opt out of being photographed upon entering or exiting the country, a process that is required for foreign travelers.

A Chinese wildlife park has sparked outcry after making visitors submit to facial recognition scanning, with one law professor taking it to court. Professor Guo Bing is taking action against Hangzhou safari park, after it replaced its existing fingerprinting system with the new technology. "I [filed this case] because I feel that not only my [privacy] rights are being infringed upon but those of many others," Guo, from Zhejiang University of Sci-Tech, said according to an audio recording of an interview posted by state-run Beijing News. Guo is attempting to force the park to return the money he paid for an annual pass and highlight its misuse of data gathered by the software. A court in Fuyang has accepted his case.

This Tuesday Apple unveiled a new line of phones to much fanfare, but one feature immediately fell under scrutiny: FaceID, a tool that would use facial recognition to identify individuals and unlock their phones. Jake Laperruque (@jakelaperruque) is senior counsel for privacy and security issues at The Constitution Project. He previously served as a fellow for New America's Open Technology Institute and The Center for Democracy and Technology. Unsurprisingly, this raised major anxiety about consumer privacy given its profound ramifications: Retailers already crave facial recognition to monitor consumers, and without legally binding terms, Apple could use FaceID to track consumer patterns at its stores, or develop and sell data to others. It's also possible that police would be able to more easily unlock phones without consent by simply holding an individual's phone up to his or her face. But FaceID should create fear about another form of government surveillance: mass scans to identify individuals based on face profiles.