Facial recognition technology catches first imposter at airport

Apart from being used in smartphones, facial recognition technology is now also being used in airports and it has successfully spotted its first imposter in US.

The US has lately been testing the facial recognition technology for airports and recently, it caught its first imposter in Washington Dulles International just three days after they started using it on August 20.

As per US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a 26-year-old man from Brazil was successful in fooling people with a French passport until he was presented to a security official who used the facial comparison biometric technology.

New facial recognition tech to help track, protect endangered primates

The system detected that his face wasn’t a match with the face in the passport due to which the man was sent for a complete check. The check revealed a Republic of Congo ID hidden inside the person’s shoe, reported Engadget.

The system works in a way where travelers stand in front of a camera for a picture, which is then compared to the picture in the person’s passport application. The technology is already being used at 14 airports, Miami Herald quoted CBP website.

CBP believes that this technology will largely strengthen airport security along with boosting processing time for travelers. However, privacy advocates are concerned that this technology could be used for tracking people and can put law-abiding citizens and visitors it fails to recognize in trouble.

For future, the agency hopes to entirely replace boarding passes and IDs with a new security process that only uses facial recognition. CBP’s director Casey Durst said in a statement, “Facial recognition technology is an important step forward for CBP in protecting the United States from all types of threats.

“Terrorists and criminals continually look for creative methods to enter the US including using stolen genuine documents. The new facial recognition technology virtually eliminates the ability for someone to use a genuine document that was issued to someone else,” she added.