Flying overseas this month or next from Miami International Airport?
If you booked air travel to visit family in Latin America on Avianca, Copa, or LATAM airlines, or to enjoy a late summer adventure to the Middle East or Europe on Emirates or Turkish Airways, many of you likely will encounter something new before boarding your flight at the airport. The intent is to hasten your journey.
Miami airport on Wednesday started adding facial-recognition technology to at least 20 more international departure gates to verify identification of individual travelers, the biggest implementation stage of the technology since the airport began testing it in 2018.
Passengers leaving on international flights from these gates will line up in the airline boarding area and a small touchless camera will take a picture of each person and match it with their passports on file. This step should take seconds and eliminate the need to show your boarding pass and passport.
The enhanced screening is only for passengers departing on international flights and is being done by the airlines. It is entirely separate from the Transportation Security Administration’s passenger security screening and has nothing to do with the popular passenger programs TSA Precheck or Global Clear that enable people to get through that security check process much faster.
Previously, Miami airport installed the facial-recognition technology at a handful of international departure gates in Concourse J. If you have flown on Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic or LATAM airlines, for example, you may have already used it. And the airport already fully implemented the technology at its international arrival entry points, the initial priority of the facial-screening implementation.
What can passengers expect?
Arrive at the airport as usual, check your bags, go through TSA security like normal, and head to your departure gate.
When you reach your gate, you should see in the boarding area where to line up for the camera to take a picture of your face. That camera is connected to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s cloud-based facial-matching service. The camera matches live images of you arriving at the gate with photos and documents from the database it will already have of you. The connection is secure and encrypted to block hackers.
Once the camera takes a photo and matches it with one of you in the government database, you can board the plane — assuming there’s no issues that surface via the process.
Is facial-recognition screening required for international travelers at Miami airport?
If you have privacy concerns, U.S. citizens can opt out of the facial screening and show a passport and boarding pass prior to boarding a flight. Non-U.S. citizens, however, are required to go through the new screening at international gates equipped with it, according to the Customs and Border Protection agency.
The digital photos are stored in CBP data systems and belong to the federal agency.
“They’ve [CBP] ensured that all the security encryption has been tried and tested and assurances given that data has not been leaked in any capacity,” said Maurice Jenkins, chief innovation officer at Miami airport.
Also, airlines don’t keep photos of passengers faces after they board flights, Jenkins said, noting that once flights take off only customs agents can access passenger photos.
What’s coming in October at Miami airport with this advanced screening technology?
Then Miami airport officials plan to start using facial-recognition technology at departure gates for international flights in American Airlines’ Concourse D. If that goes well, they’ll expand it to all gates in the concourse for international travel. American is the airport’s largest carrier.
The airport plans to finish installing facial-recognition cameras at all 128 domestic and international gates by the third quarter of 2024, Jenkins said, noting they only will be used for passengers boarding international flights. One reason for taking until then is the airport needs to obtain more equipment and still struggles to do that because of supply-chain issues.
“The benefit of doing all this is it speeds up the process for boarding,” he said.
And given that most of Miami airport’s gates handle both international and U.S. flights, he said, “my long-term vision is to take this to domestic … flights, too.”
What’s Miami airport’s history adapting biometric passenger screening?
The airport started testing facial-recognition technology in 2018. Cameras to do it were installed at all international arrival gates by the end of 2020.
The airport turned to departure gates in 2019 with a pilot project. Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic participated. The test ran until the beginning of 2020. By then, Miami airport officials had enough data to know what technology and vendor it wanted to use.
Also, in early 2020, Miami airport submitted to Miami-Dade County a vendor bid to supply the facial-recognition hardware and software to photograph passengers. In May 2022, the county approved a $9.1 million, seven-year contract with SITA, the global leader in air transport communication and information technology.
MIA started installation of the facial screening equipment in October 2022.
This month’s action is the latest but largest phase of a multiyear effort originally stemming from the 9-11 Commission, created by U.S. Congress following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in September 2011. The body requested the U.S. Department of Homeland Security develop an entry and exit system using biometrics that would allow it to better track people departing the country at air, sea, and land ports of entry.
More answers about biometric screening, travelers’ privacy rights
Customs and border protection officials, urge air passengers with questions and/or concerns to read the following information at:
— www.dhs.gov/privacy. See “Traveler Verification Service” under “Privacy Compliance.”
— www.cbp.gov or call the CBP Information Center at 1-877-227-5511.
— Travelers who experience delays in airline boarding can seek redress through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s traveler redress inquiry program (TRIP) at [email protected].
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