U.S. travel security agencies are betting on biometrics to power the next generation of airport and border screening, senior officials said Wednesday.
Speaking at the Homeland Security and Defense Forum in Washington, D.C., leaders from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the State Department outlined plans to broaden photo and fingerprint collection to more travelers and more points of entry.
At CBP, biometric screening capabilities are already transforming travel at U.S. ports of entry and airports, said Matt Davies, executive director for admissibility and passenger programs at CBP’s Office of Field Operations.
Those capabilities are enabling the agency to “leapfrog” device-stored digital credentials as it expands pre-arrival mobile submission of photos and fingerprints for travelers under its Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) program, which waives visa requirements, Davies said.
ESTA travelers can “submit a photo and the fingerprints on a mobile application before they ever travel to the United States,” Davies explained.
CBP plans to expand those biometric capabilities to include other travelers, using funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill appropriated last year to expand CBP’s screening capabilities in airports.
“We’re going to be expanding our biometric collections to the land borders,” Davies said. “We don’t have the capability today … but we’re looking to implement some technology solutions that are going to allow us to do that.”
One way that CBP will do that is by placing mobile passport control into travelers’ hands, Davies explained. He said that next week, CBP will allow pedestrians crossing the border at two locations bordering Canada and two bordering Mexico to submit a selfie and passport data to support biometric processing without officers needing to photograph everyone.
Those same capabilities will be rolled out to vehicles later this year, he added.
“Our goal really would be to get to a point where we have the biometrics for everyone before they come in,” Davies said.
At TSA, the acting Chief Information Officer Balaji Subramaniam said the administration is overseeing the security and identity-matching requirements for biometric screening.
A growing network of industry partners provides the edge devices that capture biometric data, which can currently be used through registered or trusted traveler programs, expanded TSA PreCheck offerings, or third-party “seamless identity” services.
“The rate at which we are collaborating with right now is enormous,” Subramaniam said.
“[TSA is] working with CBP and State Department, making sure those passport, identity, or facial identity [match] … while we are collaborating with the private parties to integrate those seamless experiences. I think that is where we want to thrive, and you will see that more and more,” he added.
Tim Ahrens, AI and automation team lead at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, said his department’s role in biometric capabilities has been focused on making data available in real-time for interagency partners using biometric scanning.
“Obviously, there’s been a lot of work in modernizing, you know, our consular services, modernizing passports, a physical passport, in terms of the digital data that is available there,” Ahrens added.