facial-recognition is becoming
ubiquitous from unlocking our phones to
social media and now even airports I'm
in Atlanta to check out new facial
recognition technology it's supposed to
allow you to use your face to get
through the entire Airport process we're
gonna see how it works in December delta
introduced the first biometric terminal
in the US said Atlanta's
hartsfield-jackson International Airport
promising to improve the boarding
experience for Delta passengers why are
you doing this what's the advantage for
the airline well ultimately it's for our
customers and improving the experience
for them and really reducing stress and
travel friction save them time and make
the experience better can you look at
this as I will use my face for
identification instead of pulling out my
driver's license or passport that's
exactly it you know your face becomes
your identification I wanted to test
this technology out for myself so I'm
going to check in for a flight to Narita
Airport in Tokyo now I look at the
camera and there it is I've checked in
for my flight and I've got my boarding
pass while Delta says this is a time
saver others are concerned about the
accuracy of facial recognition like this
and the privacy of passengers who opted
in what about accuracy you know we hear
a lot about facial recognition
algorithms have a difficult time with
people with dark skin or women or short
people how is it actually work yeah of
course the CBP could give you the actual
numbers but you know from what we've
seen the match rates are in the very
high 90% ranges so the technology works
it's safe its secure the experience is
good on top of that the process from
curbed through security was seamless
enough the last stop is the gate
I was curious to hear about the
experience of my fellow travelers are
you comfortable with what they're doing
here today um not really I just think it
raises a lot of privacy concerns so you
will opt out I will up
yeah is that it in communes you're gonna
be in the slow line are you I would
prefer being inconvenience and being in
a slow line rather than you know risking
my friends you just came through for
boarding for the flight to Tokyo you use
the facial recognition what did you
think it's great so easy being paperless
and digital is so nice so convenient
what about privacy concerns the
convenience that it provides to me
outweighs the risk from a convenience
standpoint it's a secure process it's
optional there's no data that we keep as
an airline and there's no additional
information you get out of this we do
not save any additional information as
part of this and so far customer
acceptance has been ok 72% of our
customers prefer to use facial over the
current process and there's only a 2%
opt-out rate CBP says they save the
photos only about 24 hours in case
there's an issue with the flight in
terms of privacy they already have your
photo you give it to them when you apply
for a passport so there's nothing
gathered that they don't already have
after trying Delta's new facial
recognition technology it did seem to
speed up the process and make my
boarding experience more efficient but
occasionally some people may have to
show their passports airports are using
this as a replacement for your passport
your driver's license but the privacy
concerns are real and there's a still a
lot of public policy that needs to be
worked out with this the potential of
this technology to make traveling easier
is great and while the technology is
here now the rollout it seems might take
a little longer and so will convincing
all the traveling public that their
information will remain private