Airport biometrics from Vision-Box, Idemia, Veridos and Materna hit the tarmac

Biometrics providers Vision-Box, Idemia, Veridos, and Materna Intelligent Passenger Solutions North America are showing off their latest systems integration projects at airports to streamline passenger processing. Meanwhile, iProov has a survey suggesting passengers would prefer home checking-in for flights, which opens new opportunities for mobile biometrics vendors.

Vision-Box debuts passenger self-service biometric kiosk

Portugal’s Vision-Box has debuted its Seamless Kiosk, a passenger check-in kiosk that uses biometrics.

The Seamless Kiosk features a full-frontal face capture module optimized with automatic height and dynamic illumination adjustments for accurate face biometric capture. It also includes a modular design that can vary its configurations of its fingerprint scanner, travel documents and bar code reader, card reader and accessibility keypad.

Vision-Box says Seamless Kiosk conforms to the latest International Air Transport Association (IATA) recommendations and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards for safe and quick biometric processing. It is also compliant with the standards from International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on biometric data interchange formats and biometric presentation attack detection.

Alessandro Minucci, an executive with Vision-Box, says Seamless Kiosk can be deployed in multiple roles such as identity management, travel and tourism and border control, “allowing the user to enjoy the best seamless experience, with the highest accuracy and speed via a biometric-by-design solution.”

Vision-Box systems have been deployed widely, from Australia and New Zealand to Mexico.

Singapore’s Changi Airport to biometrically verify fliers

Idemia’s biometric capture devices will be integrated into Changi Airport to expedite passenger processing, particularly for immigration.

The company’s facial and fingerprint recognition system known as TraveLane 2 Step will be enhanced with ID-Look, a multi-biometric product that verifies identities on the spot for immigration clearance. It also supports the airport’s “family lane” feature that processes groups of up to four passengers at once for immigration clearance.

Idemia first introduced TraveLane 1 Step and TraveLane 2 Step at Changi Airport in 2017. The company says it has biometrically processed more than 12 million passengers to date at the airport. It also deployed its biometric immigration system to another Singaporean airport: the Seletar Airport.

As “global travel restarts, we are delighted to extend our longstanding partnership with Singapore and contribute our expertise in biometrics and identity management to help them transition into a new digital-first future of travel,” according to Tim Ferris, the company’s senior vice president of public security and identity in the Asia-Pacific region.

Bangladesh deploys Veridos passports and face biometrics

Bangladesh’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport will roll out 27 of Veridos’ electronic gates, which use facial recognition and digital passports to identify passengers, according to the Bangladeshi Monitor.

The gates will automatically grant access to holders of electronic passports, who need to present their face at the gate, where the system will identify the passenger after scanning a chip containing biometric information on their passport.

Besides removing barriers for passengers, airport officials say it will expedite the immigration process with minimal human interaction.

The Bangladesh government has plans to set up a total of 50 gates at other airports and land crossings.

Veridos won the €340 million contract for Bangladeshi digital passports in 2018.

Spirit Airlines incorporates Materna IPS biometric bag drop in LAX

Spirit Airlines announced it will test a bag self-drop and biometric photo-matching system made by Materna IPS at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to hasten the check-in process.

First implemented in 2019, Spirit implemented Materna’s bag self-drop system with facial recognition at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Texas’ Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Atlanta’s Hartford-Jackson International Airport. Passengers drop off their luggage without interacting with an agent and perform a biometric photo match that verifies their government-issued photo ID to a photo of the passenger.

LAX also has a biometric bag-drop installed in 32 of Delta Airline’s Sky Way terminals.

Spirit says the Materna’s system can analyze key physical features on more than 50,000 forms of ID from nearly 200 countries.

It will be subject to initial testing at LAX where there will be manual ID check and optional biometric processing. Eventually, it will eliminate the need to hand identification to an agent when checking baggage, Spirit says.

Mike Byrom, vice president of airports and crew services for Spirit, says, “Our guests are tech-savvy, and they appreciate options for controlling their travel journey.” It also complements Spirit’s staffing and helps maintain the consistency of customer service, he said.

Survey finds most passengers open to check-in from home; opportunity for biometrics

A survey from biometric authentication and liveness detection company iProov finds that almost nine-in-10 respondents are open to checking in from home. This is an opportunity for biometrics providers to meet the demand, iProov says.

The survey, which asked 16,000 passengers from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Australia, about inconveniences with flights and their openness to home check-in.

Long lines at airports rated as the most common inconvenience, with 70 percent saying they irked them.

To bypass long lines, 86 percent said yes or maybe to completing their ticket and ID checks from home to speed the process.

Eighty-eight percent of global respondents said they would probably be more likely to choose an airline or other travel service that offered home check-in. Forty-five percent said they would definitely choose home.

IProov CEO Andrew Bud says, “We’ve shown that online face verification can be applied to improve the consumer travel experience, making life easier for travelers and operators around the world.”

The company has a facial recognition trial with Europe’s rail service Eurostar.

Article Topics

airports  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  face biometrics  |  IDEMIA  |  identity verification  |  iProov  |  Materna Intelligent Passenger Solutions North America  |  passenger processing  |  Veridos  |  Vision-Box