Delta Air Lines will become the first US airline to use facial recognition software for security purposes. A test of the technology will begin by October 15, 2018 at Terminal F and in December 2018 at the international terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, where it will be used for check-in, security, boarding, and for Customs. The hope is to create a so-called “biometric terminal.”
Passengers will have the option to use the facial recognition instead of a passport for those checkpoints, though passengers still need passports, boarding passes, and conventional ID. Biometric kiosks will be marked, and only those willing to use them will enter them.
Airports in Singapore, Germany, and the U.K. have used facial recognition software.
“We’re scaling first in Atlanta at Concourse F, and as we get experience with that we’re going to look to scale it throughout our system ultimately,” Gil West, Delta’s COO, told Kelly Yamanouchi of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (reprinted in In Homeland Security) . “We think it will over time become the norm in the travel experience.”
