A new state-of-the-art screening technology that can identify small discrepancies in fraudulent identification piloted by the Transportation Security Administration at Boston Logan Airport over the last year is rolling out to airports nationwide.
The Credential Authentication Technology scans driver’s licenses, passports, and other forms of identification and can verify a traveler’s flight status in real-time, TSA Spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said at a press conference Wednesday.
“This truly enhances the ability to verify not only the license or the passport,” Farbstein said, “but it also ensures that the individual has a valid a boarding pass and is taking it to fly this day from this airport.”
Travelers at TSA checkpoints with a CAT scanner must hand their ID to a TSA officer, who inserts it into the scanner, which tells the officer whether the ID is valid. Starting Oct. 1, travelers must have REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses or other acceptable forms of identification to pass the checkpoint.
Typically, the process should take about 8-12 seconds, Farbstein said.
The scanner, which can pull from a library of over 25,000 forms of identification, is able to detect small discrepancies that TSA officers can’t see, Farbstein said. Without the system, TSA officers inspect ID’s by eye, and would miss, for example, a fraudulent ID which looks like a Georgia driver’s license but has a barcode that scans as a Connecticut driver’s license.
“I can’t tell that there's a problem with that bar code by looking at it,” Farbstein said. “But this can, and that’s the point.”
This new system should also make TSA checkpoints more efficient, Farbstein said.
She added that the scanners do not maintain personal information.
When asked if undocumented immigrants should be fearful about traveling under this new system, Farbstein said they should not because the system is not used for checking for immigration status.
Logan Airport currently has CAT scanners at 25 TSA checkpoints, and there are 500 scanners in use nationwide, Farbstein said. The TSA said it plans to continually expand use of CAT scanners, which cost approximately $27,000 per unit, until all checkpoints are equipped with CAT scanners.
The security company IDEMIA manufactured the devices IDEMIA.
The TSA said it will not need to see a traveler’s boarding pass under the new system due to a flight verification feature that will allow officers to know a passenger's flights, meaning they would not make it through the checkpoint if at the wrong terminal.
Nonetheless, travelers will still need to show their pass to the airline once they pass the checkpoint.
“We want to make sure that the person who's presenting themselves at the travel document podium is indeed the person that they're claiming to be,” Farbstein said.
