TSA Verifies Fingerprint Replacement Boarding Pass Use
On Tuesday, TSA announced a pilot program using new biometric technology to replace boarding passes and ID cards with fast fingerprint scanning.
Fingerprint check-in is being screened at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta and Denver International Airport for people participating in the TSA pre-screening. If all goes well, this scan will automate and speed up the registration process.
The program is voluntary, but there are some safety concerns similar to those people had when the TSA pre-screening and global re-entry were first announced. For example, the information the TSA collects is available to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies for background checks and crime detection. And the data is kept for 75 years.
Plus, with more advanced technologies like face scans and fingerprints, the government will have access to more information about you. And it’s unclear what the government plans to do with this information.
“It’s a technology that can be easily used for mass indiscriminate surveillance,” Jeremy Scott, national security adviser at the Electronic Privacy Clearing House, told The Washington Post . “Any use of facial recognition for something like this – where governments or companies are looking for people to use facial recognition – requires very careful scrutiny by the public due to the serious risk of mission disruption.”
Scott also notes that there are no laws that would prohibit the government from using your information for other surveillance plans. However, the fingerprints used in the program were already obtained from TSA pre-validation and global re-login applications.
While the program is still being tested, participants will still need to show their boarding passes and IDs, which may (ironically) shorten the waiting time a bit. TSA did not provide details on how long this pilot program will last or when it will be rolled out across the country if successful.
Programs like CLEAR , a service that allows people to verify their identity using fingerprint or iris scans, have already been rolled out in more than 18 cities. Earlier this month, Delta began testing a similar program that allows passengers to use fingerprints in lieu of plane tickets at Reagan National Airport in Washington.
Fingerprint scanning is a time saver and is no doubt useful for those who have forgotten their IDs or boarding passes before. There are still serious privacy concerns, but the program does signal an exciting change for airports with less hassle .