CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — The Summer travel season is officially underway and with more people taking to the skies, the means TSA is preparing for lots of passengers nationwide.
Here in Buffalo, The TSA has installed it's latest version of its Credential Authentication Technology (CAT) system, to verify a traveler's identity.
Like the ones they had before, it scans your photo ID to confirm your identity and flight details. But the new ones also have a camera to capture a real-time photo of the traveler, comparing it to the one on the submitted ID in an aim to prevent fraudulent documents at the security checkpoint.
It's the same technology used to unlock your phone through facial recognition.
Once the CAT-2 confirms the match, the traveler can proceed through the checkpoint, without ever exchanging a boarding pass.
"If you are uncomfortable having your photo taken, hey that's okay you tell the officer that you wanna opt-out and the officer will then validate you the way it was done prior to the camera being installed." says Lisa Farbstein with the TSA. She also wanted to stress, "...keep in mind the photo is not kept. The photo is deleted, we don't need it anymore."
The one thing the system is not designed to do is speed up the process of getting through, which may be considered unfortunate. Just last week the TSA set an all-time record for the number of passengers screened in a day. That record is expected to be broken soon, as travel is expected to hit all-time highs at this and other airports this summer.