Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is set to enhance its facial recognition technology by photographing all travelers exiting the US by car, matching these images against their travel documents. Although there is no specific timeline for implementation, the spokesperson indicates this will expand current practices of facial recognition at border entries. This initiative builds on a decade-long effort to track departures, dating back to pilot programs with airlines in 2016. Currently, this technology is already in place at 57 airports across the country, streamlining the travel experience through efficient biometric identification.
Although we are still working on how we would handle outbound vehicle lanes, we will ultimately expand to this area, CBP spokesperson Jessica Turner told Wired. It's an expansion of the agency's current practice of photographing travelers as they enter the country and matching those photos with "all documented photos, i.e., passports, visas, green cards, etc.," the agency has on record.
CBP has been working on ways to track people as they leave the US for over a decade. After two years of lab tests, CBP experimented with collecting travelers' biometrics at airports in 2016.
The agency's collection of outgoing travelers' biometric data has expanded since then. CBP currently uses 'biometric facial comparison technology' to process travelers exiting the US at 57 airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Los Angeles International Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
We found that facial recognition was intuitive for people. Everybody knows how to align their face to a camera—the technology helps facilitate a smoother transition for travelers.
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