Cedar Rapids airport testing facial recognition technology

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids is one of 25 airports in the U.S. that are testing new facial recognition technology in Transportation Security Administration lines.

The new technology adds to the previous authentication methods by taking a picture of the traveler to match against their ID, said Jessica Mayle, the TSA regional spokesperson for Iowa.

The TSA’s previous system — called the Credential Authentication Technology, or CAT — scans a traveler’s ID and verifies that it is valid and that the traveler has a ticket to fly that day.

The new technology — called the CAT-2 — still verifies the ID and ticket, but also takes a photo of the person to match against their ID for extra security.

“I want to emphasize that participation is voluntary, and if someone declines to have their photo taken, the photo on their ID is manually verified against the traveler in real-time by the officer,” Mayle said. “This adds no time to their screening process. It’s the same process that was used before the CAT-2 was introduced.”

The new system launched last week at The Eastern Iowa Airport, and might not be used at all times, depending on passenger flow and staffing, according to Mayle.

The technology is also being tested at the Des Moines Airport.

“As TSA and the state of Iowa collaborated on technology innovations, we found an opportunity to introduce this technology at CID and DSM, which is how these airports became part of the CAT-2 pilot,” Mayle said.

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