What started out as a little facetious in my own head leads me now to a serious question. Is there some meaningful reason why Google has to use a subsection of images for reCAPTCHA? I really dislike having to do this and at the very least would appreciate some variation.

• Traffic Lights
• Buses
• Bicycles
• Cars
• Crosswalks

Is there something special about these things in this context? Is the visual noise they're usually associated with what makes them good candidates? Are Google just really into urban planning? Who knows...I'm hoping some Tilder smarter than I can help me out.

My wife and I recently spent 10 days in Ireland. On our trip home, we went through US Customs at the Dublin airport. When it was our turn to speak to the TSA agent, we were called over to the desk and the agent asked my wife to stand in front of the camera. I assumed she was just getting her picture taken, similar to what we had done by Jamaica Customs when we flew into Montego Bay a couple years ago. Before she could even give him her passport or boarding pass , the agent asked "So <wife's name>, what part of Wisconsin is <city we live in> located?". As soon as it happened, my stomach dropped. I've been thinking about it ever since and still can't quite figure out how they are populating their facial recognition database. A couple more points:

· There was nothing else the TSA agent could have used to identify my wife.
· We had not had pictures/facial scans taken in any US Federal facility prior to this.
· From the time my wife stood in front of the camera to the TSA agent starting to ask, maybe 3-5 seconds had elapsed.

Has anyone else experienced this? This Twitter thread with JetBlue seems to be a similar experience.