Los Angeles Airport trials contactless biometric boarding system from Vision-Box

Los Angeles Airport has begun a trial of a contactless self-service biometric boarding system from Vision-Box for travelers departing the U.S. The paperless solution captures a live high-quality image of the traveler’s face for matching by Customs and Border Protection against the digital facial token captured during the immigration process.

This allows travelers to board the aircraft in just a few seconds without presenting a travel document or boarding pass, according to the announcement. It also allows the process of sending boarding-pass details to the Airline Departure Control System to be virtualized, using the face as a token. Once the token is matched, the gateway opens to allow boarding.

Vision-Box says the system is designed to account for the human factor, and images are pre-processed by its anti-spoofing and liveness checking technology. While it can work with biometrics alone, the technology can accommodate boarding-pass scans, seat re-assignment or additional verification modalities.

“Vision-Box made use of state-of-the-art biometric technology, able to deliver high quality data that drastically enhance matching accuracy, sustained by in-house developed Deep Machine Learning engines for superior facial capture,” said Vision-Box CEO Miguel Leitmann.

Three stands with the contactless solution have been installed at Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles Airport for use by British Airways, with tests planned for other airlines. The project is supported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the country’s Biometric Exit trial program.

“This industry-first deployment of innovative solutions from the US Customs and Border Protection and Vision-Box, shows the amazing potential of using biometrics to speed up the boarding process while maintaining safety and security,” commented Justin Erbacci, chief innovation and technology officer at Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA). “We have been very impressed with the results thus far, and love to see the passengers’ excitement at being some of the first in the world to use facial recognition.”

As previously reported, Vision-Box demonstrated its Seamless Airport 4.0 at FTE Asia in November.

Article Topics

airports  |  biometric exit  |  biometrics  |  passenger processing  |  Vision-Box