Biometric exits at U.S. airports are a big headache
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עברית (Hebrew)
A top official at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) cautioned that a biometric exit system at airports could be a vast waste of money if it doesn’t guarantee that passengers have actually boarded their flights.
Customs officers could collect biometrics from foreigners flying out of the country at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints or at kiosks near departure gates. But CBP may not be able to guarantee that those who provided their fingerprints didn’t just walk out of the airport.
The agency experimented with kiosks during a past biometric exit pilot and realized it would have to rely on the airline’s flight manifest to know that the person boarded the plane, said John Wagner, acting deputy assistant commissioner at CBP, during a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing Sept. 26.
“Then,” he said, “you’re defaulting back to the biographic system,” which a biometric system is supposed to improve upon. Two passengers could also swap boarding passes, and if one doesn’t board the flight, the information in the flight manifest would be wrong.
CBP could also place an officer with a fingerprint scanner at every international departure gate, Wagner said that “We could implement that fairly quickly and easily, but it’s got a pretty tremendous price tag along with it.”
iHLS – Israel Homeland Security
According to Fierce Homeland Security a biometric exit system was originally called for under a law that passed in 1996, and a 2004 law mandated that the Homeland Security Department accelerate its development.
An exit tracking system could prevent visa overstays by providing Immigration and Customs Enforcement with reliable information about foreign nationals who remain in the country beyond the terms of their visas.
DHS is still years away from fulfilling its mandate to create the system. In July, the Government Accountability Office said that the department plans to report to Congress about the costs and benefits of biometric air exit options before the fiscal 2016 budget cycle.
A complete system would also require biometric collection at land border crossings. CBP cooperates with Canada to exchange border crossing data, counting entries into Canada as exits from the United States.
Mexico lacks the infrastructure and policies to do the same kind of collection at the southwestern border, Wagner said. For CBP to collect biometrics at the southwestern border, Wagner said it would have to dramatically expand infrastructure there. Traffic would compound if vehicles have to stop twice–once for CBP to track exits and again for Mexican customs officials to process entries.
