The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Monday issued its first roadmap for the adoption of biometric technologies to strengthen aviation security while improving the passenger experience at airports, and like its sister agency Customs and Border Protection (CBP), it plans to focus on facial recognition technology.
The roadmap puts forth four goals for the biometric vision, with the first being working with CBP on using biometrics for international travelers by proving the operational feasibility of the technology.
TSA already this year has done technical demonstrations facial recognition technology at Los Angeles International Airport. In the second phase of the evaluation, TSA is using a CBP camera stationed with the TSA Travel Document Checker at the head of the checkpoint for outbound international travelers to confirm a match and present biographic data to the inspector on a tablet computer. TSA is using CBP’s backend Traveler Verification System (TVS), which temporarily houses photos of all departing and arriving international travelers for flights daily, for its evaluation of facial recognition technology and related processes.
Pilot evaluations will continue as part of the first goal with the aim of automating the travel document process and helping CBP with its biometric air exit efforts.
The second goal is to operationalize the technology for its PreCheck trusted travelers. TSA currently collects fingerprints from travellers that voluntarily enroll in PreCheck and in 2019 plans to add facial image capture to the process.
TSA in the roadmap says it will create implementation plans for each goal.
The third goal in the roadmap is aimed at expanding the use of biometrics to more domestic travelers, which would likely be those that aren’t in trusted traveler programs, and would be on an “opt-in” basis. This goal calls for developing partnerships to achieve “scalable solutions,” and is like CBP’s approach to having airport and airline partners pay for the front end camera and related equipment while it operates and maintains the back end TVS system for biometric air exit.
“TSA will develop clear pathways to partnership and collaboration with strategic aviation security stakeholders including airlines, airports, and registered traveler program providers,” TSA says in the 23-page roadmap, TSA Biometrics Roadmap: For Aviation Security & the Passenger Experience.
One of those registered traveler providers is CLEAR, which operates biometric identity verification services for members at airports and stadiums, in return for certain customer conveniences.
Howard Kass, the head of Corporate Affairs at CLEAR, issued a statement applauding TSA’s new roadmap.
TSA plans to expand and mature its biometric pilot projects and will favor airports and airlines that “have committed to making their own investments to streamline the passenger experience sing facial recognition technology,” the roadmap says.
The final goal is to develop the infrastructure that supports the adoption of biometric solutions.
TSA Administrator David Pekoske in a letter introducing the roadmap says “It defines clear pathways to improve security, safeguard the Nation’s transportation system, and accelerate the speed of action through smart investments and collaborative partnerships.”
CBP traditionally has used electronic fingerprint scans to verify the identities of foreign nationals arriving to the U.S. The agency has begun to transform that process to make facial recognition the primary technology to verify the identity of international arrivals and is in the process of rolling out the technology at departure gates for all travelers departing the U.S. by air.
CBP is also evaluating facial recognition technology for pedestrians at land ports of entry and in vehicles.
TSA said the benefits of facial recognition include self-service and anti-tampering attributes, low cost given the wide availability of high-performance commercial cameras, and its flexibility and scalability for use across the passenger experience from reservation to boarding. It also said that facial images are also widely collected by federal and state organizations for identity documents.
The TVS system features relatively smaller numbers of facial images as the galleries are built for each separate flight and the images captured at the departure gates are checked against a specific flight’s gallery. TSA says it plans to work with CBP and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate and Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) “to ensure facial matching capabilities are optimized for the larger gallery sets needed for checkpoint processing.”
OBIM operates and maintains the DHS IDENT biometric database, which allows it to provide storage, matching and identity verification services. OBIM, through prime contractor Northrop Grumman [NOC], is developing a new biometric identity system called Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) that will be larger and more scalable than IDENT and offer fusion matching capabilities.
“Together, as biometric matching continues to mature, TSA and CBP will work with OBIM to create an integration roadmap to…HART in accordance with DHS policy and guidance,” the roadmap says.