Biometric technology holds a lot of promise for the Transportation Security Administration, despite misgivings and concerns of a lot of people about the technology, because it will improve security and efficiencies and make life easier for travelers, says the head of the agency’s requirements and technology evaluation office.
“You’re looking at an analog man living in a digital world,” Austin Gould, assistant administrator of the Requirements and Capabilities Analysis office, said at a June 20 TSA Industry Day. A self-described “disaster” with using digital technology, Gould said he’s “excited about biometrics and identity management. And that is the truth.”
Biometrics enhances the ability to positively identify people and will speed up processing at checkpoints, and “I think that it will be difficult to fool or spoof,” he said.
Currently, TSA has ongoing facial recognition technology at a checkpoint and bag drop location at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport in Atlanta to identify passengers.
Upcoming Pilot Evaluations
Later this year, the agency plans to pilot facial recognition technology at a checkpoint at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. In the upcoming evaluation, a camera will be used in conjunction with new Credential Authentication Technology (CAT), which authenticates a traveler’s credential and links to TSA’s Secure Flight database to determine the risk level of the traveler.
For the biometric evaluation, when a traveler puts his credential in the CAT reader, a separate camera will take a photo of the individual and the system will compare the captured photo with that on the credential and provide a match or no-match, Gould said.
Jason Lim, who is the Biometrics Capability Lead in Gould’s office, said at the industry day that the one-to-one face matching pilot at McCarran will provide an automated identity verification of the individual while CAT will authenticate the traveler’s credential. Face matching combined with the CAT system will automate can automate the authentication, verification, travel privileges and Secure Flight vetting status, he said.
So far, TSA has deployed 47 CAT units as part of its initial low-rate initial production contract with IDEMIA. By the end of the second quarter of the government’s fiscal year 2020, TSA expects to have 505 CAT systems deployed to U.S. airport security checkpoints. Full operating capability for CAT, which is projected to be 1,520 units, is estimated for FY ’23, according to TSA briefing slides on the program at the industry day.
The CAT biometric evaluation is expected to begin later this summer.
Early in 2020, TSA plans to conduct another biometric evaluation at an airport security PreCheck trusted traveler lane that takes advantage of an existing Department of Homeland Security database based on facial matching. For that pilot, TSA will evaluate the ability to do facial image comparisons on a one-to-many basis using the Traveler Verification Service (TVS) operated by Customs and Border Protection for its biometric entry and exit program.
CBP uses the TVS to stage photos of travelers departing the U.S. by air on a particular day at airport boarding gates equipped with camera technology. Lim says that because TSA knows you’re scheduled to fly at a certain time and date, CBP can pull the photos and stage them based on a person’s passport phot, noting that there’s a “huge overlap” between the PreCheck population and passport holders.
Photos can also be pulled based on “Green Card” photos, he said.
CBP has touted facial matching accuracy of around 98 percent for its biometric exit program. While facial recognition technology can suffer in one-to-many searches against a database, the fact that the TVS is limited to flights on a particular day and even time, means that the photo galleries are more manageable for the matching algorithms.
Lin said being able to do a one-to-many biometric match offers the potential of a seamless or tokenless experience at the head of the checkpoint PreCheck security queue, meaning most travelers would not have to show a boarding pass and credential.
Matt Gilkeson, TSA’s lead on a new flexible checkpoint lane evaluation, said the biometric evaluations provide a huge opportunity for checkpoint operations and customer experience.
“The thing that excites me the most is the opportunity we’re sitting upon,” Gilkeson said during a panel discussion that included Lin on the checkpoint of the future. “With the connections that we’re going to drive with these pieces of equipment and the data that we’ll have from those pieces of equipment, we’ll be able to drive a more seamless and enhanced passenger experience and kind of move ourselves forward.”
Gould said both upcoming biometric evaluations will help generate requirements appropriate to the agency. He also suggested that airlines and airports can pay for the camera systems deployed at checkpoints and then gift them to TSA.
In CBP’s biometric exit program, the agency provides the TVS database and backend facial matching algorithms while airlines and airports pay for the cameras and related equipment deployed at international departure gates.
provides the facial matching algorithms to CBP.
Further out, TSA is also assessing how it may have to grapple with future technologies such as digital identities like mobile driver’s licenses, Lim said. These may “be a huge disruptor in the in the ID verification space,” he said. TSA is “looking deeply into how” digital identities are evolving and what standards are emerging and to “make sure we can consume that identity,” whether it’s a passport or driver’s license, he said.