As businesses continue to turn to facial recognition technology to do everything from verifying your identity to make a credit card purchase to preventing toilet paper thieves, Delta Air Lines is hoping that it can use biometrics to help streamline its self-service bag drops.
The airline spent $600,000 on four new self-service bag drop machines at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport designed to allow customers to quickly check their own bags.
One of those machines will be equipped with facial recognition technology that can match customers with their passport photos to verify their identity when checking bags without the help of airline workers, which Delta says is a first for U.S. carriers.
Though some travelers might find it creepy to have a machine scanning their faces, Delta says the tech will save them time and free up airline employees to “seek out travelers and deliver more proactive and thoughtful customer service.”
Delta isn’t the first airline to dabble in facial recognition: British Airways is using the tech at its London Heathrow Airport hub that lets people simply walk through the boarding gate and onto the plane without showing a boarding pass.
[h/t The Verge]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist