Philadelphia International Airport is currently testing new biometrics equipment for select outbound international flights. American Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa are assisting Philadelphia International in this 45-day trial. Three different facial recognition screenings were set up at gates that serve international flights for those airlines. All international passengers are required to go through the screening when boarding the flight; Canadians and Americans can choose to opt out of the process, which involves a facial scan that cross-checks with a government photo to verify it is you.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection ensures this process is only for safety and respects privacy. Once CBP takes your picture they put it through tests and compare it to other documents, such as a passport, and then it goes into a catalog for your specific flight and only stays in the system for 12 hours. The airport doesn’t receive any information about you, just that it is a match. PHL is the 27th airport to test this system. Once the 45-day trial is over, the airport will complete an analysis and decide which technology worked better.
On Thursday morning I attended a demonstration for these new facial screenings. I even got to see it tested on actual outbound international flights. Passengers seemed confused at first, but didn’t seem to have any complaints.
— Mary Melnick, social media and editorial coordinator
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