PUBLISHED: April 27, 2019 at 9:57 pm | UPDATED: April 28, 2019 at 5:51 am
BOSTON, MA. - APRIL 1: JetBlue planes at Logan Airport on April 1, 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts . (Staff Photo By Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)
A JetBlue passenger was shocked when she was directed to have her face scanned through recognition software in place of a boarding pass.
Sharing her experience on Twitter, MacKenzie Fegan said, “Instead of scanning my boarding pass or handing over my passport, I looked into a camera before being allowed down the jet bridge. Did facial recognition replace boarding passes, unbeknownst to me? Did I consent to this?”
According to the airline operator, the device used facial recognition software to identify Fegan and allowed her to board the plane in lieu of a boarding pass. JetBlue said Fegan could have opted out of using the facial recognition software. Fegan asked the company how it matches the photo to a person’s identity, to which JetBlue responded, “The information is provided by the United States Department of Homeland Security from existing holdings.”
JetBlue explained: “These photos aren’t provided to us, but are securely transmitted to the Customs and Border Protection database. JetBlue does not have direct access to the photos and doesn’t store them.”
Last year, JetBlue hailed itself as an industry leader as “the first domestic airline to launch a fully-integrated biometric self-boarding gate for international flights.”
Through a partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, JetBlue said, the facial recognition software can verify travelers “with a quick photo capture,” and will allow passengers to “board even faster with a dual lane biometric self-boarding gate.”
Pitching the program as a matter of convenience, JetBlue Senior Vice President Ian Deason said in a press release titled, “Your Face is Your Boarding Pass,” that the boarding procedures are “an area that needs innovation and we feel biometrics will change the future of air travel.”
A recent Department of Homeland Security report said the agency is working toward “full implementation” of facial recognition technology within the next four years, and estimates it will “account for over 97 percent of departing commercial air travelers from the United States.”
“Since its inception, over two million passengers on over 15,000 flights have used the technology on exit, with an average biometric match rate of 98 percent,” said Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in the report.
“The biometric matching service is a robust cloud-based service that leverages existing advance passenger information to create a pre-positioned ‘gallery’ of face images from U.S. Government holdings,” the report states. The photos come from passport applications, visa applications, or interactions with CBP at a prior border encounter.
“The biometric matching service then compares a live photo of the traveler to the gallery of face images for that flight to identify the traveler and enable CBP to confirm the traveler’s crossing. On exit, the matching service identifies the traveler, creates an exit record, and enables CBP to biometrically confirm the departure of in-scope, non-U.S. citizen.”
In 2017, the airline piloted its biometric software recognition program at several airports, including Logan International Airport. “Since the program’s launch in 2017, more than 50,000 customers have participated in biometric boarding on 500+ flights across all four cities. There is no pre-registration required. Customers can simply step up to the camera for a photo match and make their way onto the aircraft,” the company said in November.
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