Port Authority head promotes a ‘big role’ for biometrics at airports

New York-area airports might look a lot more like a science fiction movie in the future. In a keynote speech at City & State’s Government Modernization Summit Thursday, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Executive Director Rick Cotton said that biometric technology – a broad category that includes tools such as facial recognition and fingerprint scanners – holds a lot of promise for giving travelers a more efficient experience at airports. “The agenda is to enable people to get through security lines, get through taxi lines, get through really any pinch points in terms of the airport experience,” Cotton told City & State after his address. “I think that the future will turn out to have a big role for biometrics.” 

Cotton said he was speaking more theoretically about the potential of those tools and not about any concrete plans to expand their use at airports. But Cotton pointed to one tool already in operation as an example of how this technology can improve customer experience. Clear is a tool already in wide use at airports – including at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark – that allows customers who opt in to verify their identity through a fingerprint or retinal scan rather than presenting physical identification to a TSA officer. The Port Authority has also piloted self-boarding “e-gates” that use a biometric scan to let a passenger through to board rather than having boarding passes scanned by gate agents.

Civil liberties and privacy groups often push back on the proliferation of biometric technology because of the concerns about its effectiveness – facial recognition has demonstrated flaws in recognizing people of color – and about privacy. Cotton addressed the latter during his keynote, suggesting that use of the tools shouldn’t be mandated. “Facial recognition capabilities are getting extraordinarily, extraordinarily good,” Cotton said. “There are some concerns on the privacy side. People should be allowed to decide whether they participate in a specific program.”