TSA Issues Statement on New Facial Recognition Technology

If you've flown commercially in the United States over the past several months, it's likely that you have encountered new technology at the TSA security checkpoint that uses a real-time photo of your face to confirm your identity. However, passengers have begun to have questions about what happens to their facial scan after that photo is taken.

For years, the TSA's Credential Authentication Technology (CAT) has been used to verify the identity of travelers and their flight details. However, the new CAT units, referred to as CAT-2 have been equipped with a camera that captures a real-time photo of the traveler, allowing for enhanced security.

The new technology has already been rolled out in 84 airports across the nation and is expected to be in more than 400 airports “over the coming years,” according to the TSA website.

The TSA has said that this new technology enhances security and allows the agency to better confirm the identity of travelers.

“Identity verification of every traveler prior to flying is a key step in the security screening process,” said Gerardo Spero, TSA’s Federal Security Director for Pennsylvania and Delaware, in a TSA news release. “This technology enhances detection capabilities for identifying fraudulent IDs such as driver’s licenses and passports at a checkpoint and it increases efficiency by automatically verifying a passenger’s identification. We just want to ensure that you are who you say you are.”

 “This latest technology helps ensure that we know who is boarding flights,” Spero continued. “Credential authentication plays an important role in passenger identity verification. It improves a TSA officer’s ability to validate a traveler’s photo identification while also identifying any inconsistencies associated with fraudulent travel documents.” 

Still, there has been some pushback against the new technology, with a recent piece in Huffpost urging travelers to opt out of the facial recognition technology. However, the TSA insists that those photos are used in real time for identification purposes only and are not stored.

A TSA spokesperson told Huffpost in a statement that “a real-time picture simply means that an image is taken at the kiosk and that ‘live’ photograph is matched against the image on the identification credential.”

This statement is in line with what the TSA has previously said about the technology.

“Photos are not stored or saved after a positive ID match has been made, except in a limited testing environment for evaluation of the effectiveness of the technology,” TSA states.

Still, if a traveler has any reservations about the new technology, they are free to opt out of the facial scan.

“There is no issue and no delay with a traveler exercising their rights to not participate in the automated biometrics matching technology,” the TSA says on its website.