The Bayou City is officially the only city in the U.S. to have two international airports equipped with facial comparison technology for international arrivals.
"Simplified" equipment, in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is now at both Houston's Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby Airports, sending a message to the nation that we are "a center for innovation and technology," according to Mayor Sylvester Turner.
The process requires international passengers to pause for a photo at the primary inspection point when they first arrive at the airport. From there, the biometric facial matching service will send the photo through a database of images previously provided to the government, such as passport and visa photos.
The goal is to create a completely touchless experience amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, reducing the need for passengers to provide fingerprints or scan documents.
"At Houston Airports, we want to create a touchless environment at every step of the air travel experience," said Houston Airports Director of Aviation Mario Diaz. "With this technology, we not only drastically reduce wait times at immigration checkpoints for international passengers, but more importantly, we minimize direct contact between passengers and CBP officers, which makes the entry process touchless, safer and faster for everyone."
Passengers are allowed to opt-out of the process if they choose, and instead will be asked to present a valid travel document for the CBP officer to process manually, according to the release from Fly2Houston.
While the goal is to have 100 percent of the international boarding gates at Bush Airport equipped with facial comparison technology by early 2020, airport officials said they are expecting it to be 90 percent complete by the end of the year.
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