AUSTIN, Texas — The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) keeps adding new international flight routes, and biometric technology used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is making the screening process faster than ever before.
All flyers arriving on international flights at AUS, and some who depart on international flights, now have their face scanned using the technology that’s also being used at some airports across the country.
“They can be in and out within a matter of 10 or 15 seconds,” said Richard Mendez, the Port of Austin director for CBP, who oversees all international arrivals and departures at AUS.
Instead of hand-checking each passport, the face scan matches the flyer’s face with a government database of photos already taken for identification, like a passport or driver’s license.
“It instantaneously matches that person,” Mendez said. “With this technology, if somebody, for example, were to get a fraudulent passport, that system would automatically identify that person.”
Photos are not stored for more than 12 hours, Mendez said. Travelers concerned about privacy can also opt out, although that’s been rare at AUS.
So far, the technology has caught at least one fake passport in Austin. More than 1,200 fake passports or ones in the hands of the wrong person have been caught at airports across the country.
This summer, AUS will have more international flights than ever before. Every Saturday will see at least 16 international flights and more than 2,500 passengers could go through customs on that day. Three additional international routes are set to take off from AUS in the coming months.
“We already see the benefits of the technology, not just from the compliance perspective and improving the security but also the processing of the customers and the passenger experience,” said Ghizlane Badawi, the chief operating officer at AUS.
She said on one recent flight, the technology processed 96 passengers in about 12 minutes – nearly half of the normal boarding time.
Following the 2020 protests, the Austin City Council passed a resolution that called for limiting the use of facial recognition technology and avoiding using it for purposes like criminal investigations, law enforcement or surveillance purposes.
At AUS, which is owned by the City, the resolution calls for compliance with all federal rules and requirements while minimizing the use of facial recognition technology as much as possible.
Congress has mandated this technology at U.S. airports and asked for it to be installed as soon as possible, but there’s currently no deadline, according to a CBP spokesperson.
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