The airport drill is familiar to most. Get in the security line. Pull out your boarding pass or call it up on your phone. Fish out your license or passport. Then shuffle forward slowly until you get to the head of the line and are motioned to step up to the desk to be verified. Been there, done that. But more often these days what happens next is the front line in the latest evolutionary change in our lives, the marriage of big data, big brother and big AI.
In an increasing number of airports, it is no longer left to the TSA agent to confirm that your boarding docs match you. Rather, he or she puts your ID into a reader, then motions for you to stand in front of a camera which looks at your face. It uses biometric scanning to match the picture on your government approved ID to your in-real-life in-person mug. If those two can be connected, and that name is in the database for the day, they wave you through. The TSA agent could be blind (no comments, please) and it wouldn't make any difference. The machines got your back, or in this case, face.
In certain situations it even goes a step further. If you have registered with the Global Entry program and are returning from abroad, or are a TSA Trusted Traveler at certain airports and airlines, you can keep your wallet in your pocket. As you walk up to the camera it automatically compares your features to the picture it has on file. Before you can say "which gate?" they clear you and wave you through. It's still up to the folks manning the scanner to determine that your iPad, Gameboy, phone, associated chargers, cables and spare battery packs are just that, and not capable of being reassembled into an IED, but assuming so, you are deemed not to be a danger to your fellow passengers.
Back in 2013, when Apple introduced a fingerprint scanner as a way of unlocking your phone, it's primary purpose was not so much to secure your mobile bank account (there weren't any), but to stop people from butt dialing their last call. Surveys showed that nearly half of users didn't bother to set a password or PIN to start the process, and so every time they sat down a certain way it called mom. Like many innovations out of Cupertino, it proved so popular that other manufactures adopted it, and by 2021 that method was tied with passwords as a way to lock and unlock your device.
The method spread outward from our personal devices to other places where security was warranted, be it entry ways or financial institutions. But if anything pushed the ball further down the road it was the pandemic, and the desire to have a system that was contactless, one not requiring you to put your fingers and hands where every other person smudged their own germs. Coinciding with advances in accuracy, computer power and better, cheaper cameras, we went from scanning fingers to faces. No need to rub that French-fry grease from your thumb, you just looked like, well, you usually do. With an accuracy rate of 99%, the same as fingerprints, it was faster, less hassle and just as good. And you could pass the challenge with gloves on.
There are, of course, privacy concerns, that once the government or a company has your pic on file they can single you out even if you don't want to be. And advances in AI modeling are raising concerns that an "artificial you" could be created that would pass muster and gain entry to your personal world. If you have any doubt about how real a deep fake can be, watch the video of Billy Joel's new song, where he appears singing the just-written hit as he looks now, but also as he appeared in the 70's, 80's and 90's. You will do a double take as I did.
So what's the next step? No way of knowing, but beginning in July of this year the Vietnamese government will begin collecting biometric information from its citizens for identification purposes. It will include iris scans, voice samples and actual DNA. Should they prove unbreakable, one could see other countries adopting similar standards. And so it's not inconceivable that at some point in the future, to prove it's you getting on that Jet Blue Flight to West Palm Beach, you will need to stare into a lens, recite a limerick and produce a urine sample. Don't even ask what it will take to get an exit row.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford was ID'ed returning from London before he even got to the entry kiosk. His column appears weekly via email and online http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/ and https://marcwollin.substack.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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