The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) this summer plans to evolve planned pilot tests of fingerprint recognition technology at security checkpoints to eventually include facial recognition testing, an agency official says.
Initially TSA’s Innovation Task Force will test contactless fingerprint readers at PreCheck trusted traveler lanes at airports in Atlanta and Denver to verify a traveler’s identity, which could potentially eliminate the need for the existing check of travel documents at the front of the security lane. Using the Biometric Authentication Technology (BAT) system, a traveler would quickly provide their fingerprints and if there is a match against the PreCheck database, the goal is for the person to be granted access through an electronic gate, eliminating the need for the travel document checker, Steve Karoly, acting assistant administrator for the Office of Requirements and Capabilities Analysis, says at the annual connect:ID conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this month.
The initial BAT pilot will verify travelers’ identities with fingerprints because this data is already collected from individuals that enroll in PreCheck, he says. Contactless readers allow a user to wave their palm or palms over the devices for a quick capture of the fingerprints on a person’s hand to be checked against a database, in this case the agency’s Secure Flight system to ensure that person is enrolled in PreCheck.
The next step in the project is to replace the fingerprint device with a camera to identify the traveler based on facial recognition, Karoly says. The reasoning for using facial recognition is if a person who is not a PreCheck member arrives at the checkpoint, the photo of that person taken at the front of the checkpoint can be verified against the picture on their identification document that a Transportation Security Officer puts into a credential authentication technology scanner, he says.
TSA is working through privacy and civil rights issues related to the use of photos, Karoly says, adding “I don’t think they’re something that we can’t get over.”
TSA created the PreCheck program several years ago to allow travelers that voluntarily submit certain information on themselves to received expedited screening benefits at airport security lanes. The agency sometimes allows non-PreCheck members to use the trusted traveler lanes and get the same expedited screening procedures.
Both sets of pilots will be beginning over the next few months, Karoly says.
Fit with CBP’s Work
The facial recognition pilot fits nicely with work that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is currently doing to assess the technology for verifying the identities of foreign nationals departing the U.S. by plane. The biometric exit testing has been ongoing for a year by CBP at Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International Airport and has demonstrated the operational feasibility of using the facial recognition technology at the departure gate.
CBP, beginning in June, plans to begin rolling out the facial recognition test to eight more airports. The agency’s vision is eventually to retool its airport entry process to include facial recognition technology instead of the fingerprint checks it currently relies on.
The agency also hopes to be able to provide the biometric data to airports and airlines to help them improve their processes.
Karoly also says that TSA plans to do a pilot of biometric technology to identify travelers dropping their bags that an airline will check, Karoly said. That pilot will include Delta Airlines [DAL] and Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport in Minnesota.
Delta says it is introducing four self-service bag drop machines at the airport with a $600,000 investment, with one machine equipped to test facial recognition technology to match customers with their passport photos through identification verification.
“We expect this investment and new process to save customers time,” says Gareth Joyce, senior vice president for Airport Customer Service and Cargo at Delta. “And, since customers can operate the biometric-based bag drop machine independently, we see a future where Delta agents will be freed up to seek out travelers and deliver more proactive and thoughtful customer service.”
The airline says the biometric-based self-service bag drop is a first in the U.S.
CBP and TSA have begun to discuss how they can better share data—including photos of people—with each other to better streamline travel processes for travelers. Karoly tells HSR that these discussions just started.
Christian Revilla, general manager for Passenger Facilitation and Customer Initiatives at Delta, tells the Connect:ID audience that pairing biometrics with self-service technology along key points of the passenger flow at airports, can “streamline the passenger journey.”
Revilla says that Delta’s vision for future passenger flow is combining biometrics, self-service systems, and automated systems, so that at that point a traveler doesn’t need an ID or a boarding pass, eliminating “friction” for the passengers. This combination will also “enhance security,” he says.
The additional facial recognition evaluations that CBP is planning will test the desired solution, which includes matching photos against a pre-existing gallery of photos of the departing passengers that is stored in the cloud. They will also enable the agency to obtain more data about the operating concept for its biometric exit plans.
The accuracy of matching in the facial recognition pilot in Atlanta is in the high-90’s percentages, John Wagner, deputy executive assistant commissioner for CBP’s Office of Field Operations, says at connect:ID. He puts the matching accuracy in the 98 to 99 percent range, which is due to improved algorithms and because the database of photos is relatively small because it is just of passengers that are in the flight manifest for a particular flight.
Eventually the biometric of choice on exit could be fingerprints or iris, Wagner says, adding that it comes down to having the records to match these biometrics against.
Paul Anstine, staff director for the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, tells Connect:ID that he’s “more encouraged” than he’s ever been in the past six-plus years by CBP’s efforts to bring a biometric exit system to airports. He says the operating concept is “solid.”