CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – Passing through security on your way to the sky, will now look a little bit different at several West Virginia airports.
Those traveling out of West Virginia International Yeager Airport will now pass through a Cat-2 machine. It is used to verify the identify of travelers and uses a real time camera.
“It’s pretty much a game changer, in technology, we now have the ability to use facial algorithms to compare a live face with the identification,” said John Allen, TSA’s Federal Security Director for West Virginia.
Here is how it works; passengers walk up to the TSA check in podium, and hand over their ID– while security screens the ID, a security camera takes a real time photo of the passenger, and within seconds, can prove if the picture and the passenger match, and if the ID is real. The machine also shows the passenger’s flight status by verifying that the individual is ticketed to fly out of an airport on that same day.
If everything checks out, it’s wheels up to the security checkpoint. If things aren’t adding up, or the ID is fake, security personnel are on standby to figure out the next appropriate action.
“The human error factor is basically in everything we do, this (Cat-2 Machine) eliminates that totally. It makes us 100 percent precise, on who is coming in, and we know why they are coming in because it shows because the flight they are on, if they are at the right airport,” Allen said.
The Cat-2 machines use a “library” of IDs programmed into them that allow the technology to authenticate more than 2,500 different types of IDs including passports, drivers license and other types of identification.
Photos taken by these machines are not stored or used for any other purpose than immediate identity verification. They are deleted once the passenger leaves the podium.
Travelers who don’t want to participate in the facial matching process can opt out in favor of an alternative verification process.
The Cat-2 machines are also in use at Huntington Tri-State Airport.
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