International. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will test three different biometric systems to control departures from the country. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, biometric inputs and outputs are established by legal mandate. Biometric input – US-VISIT – was implemented in 2004, but finding a solution to control outputs has proved more difficult.
The numerous pilot tests carried out over the past 10 years have not been successful. It was about airlines capturing the biometric data of people leaving airports, but this move met with strong opposition from airlines.
Adding biometric departures at airports has been difficult because U.S. airports are not designed to track people and record them until they board the plane. Land borders have proven difficult because the facilities have no exits to hold people and collect their biometric data before they leave the country. Estimated costs for biometrics range from $25 million to $100 million.
The new pilot programs are to test biometrics at airports and land border crossings. A pilot test is underway at Virginia's Dulles National Airport, in which the face stored in an e-passport is matched to the person standing in front of the kiosk, Mike Hardin, deputy director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Entry/Exit Transformation, explained at the Connect ID conference.
Another pilot that is scheduled to begin this summer at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta will employ fingerprints to record departures from the country. The exact details of that project's workflow are not known.
The latest pilot program will employ face and iris recognition at the southern border to control pedestrians leaving the country. It is not yet known what the biometric data of the participants are.
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