No boarding pass? No problem. Your face is the new passport.
The new Delta-TSA PreCheck express lobby and bag drop at Atlanta airport (ATL). Courtesy Delta Airlines
The next step in airport automation has become a reality, just in time for the holidays.
Delta Airlines, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and a travel tech company called Pangiam have partnered up to bring facial recognition technology to the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).
As of next month, Delta SkyMiles members who use the Fly Delta app and have a TSA PreCheck membership will be able to simply look at a camera to present their “digital ID” and navigate the airport with greater ease. In this program, a customer's identity is made up of a SkyMiles member number, passport number and Known Traveler Number.
For those who choose to opt-in (the program is optional), there will be no more rummaging around in bags for a driver's license or ticket at bag drop, security, or the gate. This means passengers will likely spend less time waiting in lines and more time doing what the airport would prefer they do: eat, drink, and shop.
HOW IT WORKS
The ‘Digital ID’ is a series of verifications at each of the four checkpoints one encounters from curb to gate. There is no change to the standard airport obstacle course. But it is designed to make the process more efficient.
Before the Airport: Eligible customers will be given the option to “Enable Face ID” when they check in for their flight using the Fly Delta app. Once elected, an indicator on their boarding pass confirms their selection. If a customer does not want to use facial recognition, they can simply decline.
Bag Drop: Customers who have opted in will enter the TSA PreCheck bag drop lobby, located next to a rideshare drop-off area on the lower level of Atlanta’s Domestic South Terminal. Customers will verify their identity via a hands-free facial scan, print and attach a bag tag from a self-serve kiosk, and place their bag on the conveyor belt.
Security Checkpoint: Eligible customers will pass through the south security checkpoint in dedicated TSA PreCheck lanes with a quick look at a camera – no need to show a government ID or boarding pass.
Boarding: At the gate, customers will use a facial scan instead of a boarding pass, just as they did at bag drop and the security checkpoint.
The Fly Delta app allows you to opt-in to facial recognition verifications.
This program has been operational in the Detroit (DTW) airport since February of this year, and so far Delta reports approximately 15,000 members sign up each week. In Atlanta, testing will also include a new dedicated space on the street level called the “Delta-TSA PreCheck express lobby and bag drop” below the main lobby.
“This is where savvy Atlanta travelers told the car service or Uber where to drop them off. It’s the best kept secret,” says Greg Forbes, managing director of airport experience at Delta Air Lines, as he offers a small gaggle of journalists a preview. It’s clean and bright with a futuristic, VIP feel thanks to the white fluorescent lighting and sleek blue branding. Here, he says the minimum cutoff for bag drop is 30 minutes before departure, which is faster than most U.S. airports. “So, at Delta we try harder,” he jokes, and the room laughs. “There’s a late cut, it’s automated here. That’s a bonus tip for showing up today.”
For Delta, this is another way to attract SkyMiles members. “100 percent this is about member acquisition. There’s an advantage to being a member,” said Byron Merritt, VP of Brand Experience Design for Delta, during a demonstration of the new technology.
Given that Delta airlines has not yet mandated vaccinationsfor employees, they are also trying to keep current members from switching loyalty programs for other major carriers that have implemented mandates, including United, American, Alaska, JetBlue, Hawaiian and Frontier.
“We’re calling this the connected journey. It’s all about being more in tune with how you want to travel,” adds Merritt. It couldn’t come sooner. For the Thanksgiving holiday period (November 19-30), Delta expects to fly up to 5.9 million passengers, which signals a recovery but is still below the 6.3 million passengers who flew with Delta during the same period in 2019.
At the gate, customers will use a facial scan instead of a boarding pass.
Will this be coming soon to an airport near you? Not yet. For the time being, Delta has an exclusive on the program in partnership with TSA at Detroit and Atlanta airports through Summer 2022. If all goes well, the program is expected to serve as a blueprint for other airports.
“I think it will make the process a lot smoother. We’ll still have a TSA officer stationed here in case there are any errors or to resolve any anomalies. It automates the process which right now is being done manually, which is someone comparing your driver’s license photo to your face,” says TSA spokesperson Jessica Mayle.
For TSA, the concept is intended to redirect resources to processes that can’t be automated. But Mayle readily admits that the challenge is privacy. “It’s a super big concern that’s been baked into this whole process. We’ve held roundtables with privacy stakeholders, and all the technology is meeting TSA’s and CBP’s (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) cybersecurity requirements.”
She walks us through what facial recognition is actually doing. When you get your picture taken live, it is converted into a mathematical representation of the image. “They call it templatization. The gallery photo [the staged photo that TSA already has on file from your passport or government ID] is also converted. It’s not raw images being compared, it is the technology converting those images [into a number] to see if they match or not.”
Years ago, TSA identified facial recognition as more accurate than human performance. It is considered to be a safer way to conduct security screenings because it’s much harder to fool facial recognition than it would be to counterfeit a drivers license. Given that TSA servers, CBP servers, and Delta servers have to communicate with each other to pull the entire process off, the bigger issue is cybersecurity.
But these servers are already interconnected and interdependent. The new “digital ID” program is really just designed for frequent flyers already in the information system who want to speed through shorter lines. Ten years from now, it’s plausible that there will be no human checking your license. When your face is your passport, automation has become the new normal.