Biometric screening for passengers is coming to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport in Maryland, according to a Baltimore Sun article by Kevin Rector. The technology will be provided by CLEAR, a New York-based biometrics company.
It’s part of the TSA’s Pre-Check program, which is meant to speed up the passenger screening process while maintaining a high level of security. The program uses biometric technology to pre-approve passengers for air travel, so that those individuals need only to perform fingerprint or iris scans at automated kiosks when boarding their planes. It boasts of over a million members across the USA.
CLEAR has been working closely with the TSA and PreCheck, having installed a similar system last summer at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport; and the company has been generally encouraging with respect to the TSA’s cooperation with private-sector biometrics firms. Commenting on their latest collaboration, CLEAR CEO Caryn Seidman Becker said, “Increasing our east coast presence and joining the DC Metro Area is a 2015 priority for us and we are thrilled to be accomplishing this in partnership with BWI.”
For its part, BWI sees the development as an improvement in both security and passenger convenience, commenting via a spokesperson that the airport is “committed to providing a safe and efficient travel experience”, and lauding CLEAR’s PreCheck kiosks as “another security option and enhancement”.
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March 27, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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