US agencies push for broader adoption of facial biometrics

摘要

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is working with more US air carriers to adopt facial biometrics, while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) expands its use of the technology. TSA strategy calls for greater use of facial recognition to reduce security waiting times - so the time may come when a passenger no longer needs to display a driving licence or passport before going through the checkpoint. For more than a decade, the federal government has striven to develop a practical and cost-effective Biometric Entry/Exit system that fulfills a congressional mandate. CBP is responsible for designing and implementing a system that could biometrically track travellers entering and exiting the US; after running multiple pilot programmes, it determined that facial recognition is the best method. CBP found that facial recognition cameras are intuitive for users and quicker than other biometric methods. The camera itself is relatively compact and inexpensive, and as CBP already has a database of passport photos for biometric comparison, it can accelerate the image-matching process.