Dubai: Dubai-based Emirates airline has started using the biometric system for checking the identity of passengers boarding its planes to the United States.
It has thus become the first airline outside America to secure approval of the US Customs Border Protection (CBP) technique for passenger-identity checking.
The new move was announced on the sidelines of the Civil Aviation Security Conference, which opens today in Dubai and concludes on Tuesday (September24).
Passengers travelling from Dubai on Emirates flights to any of 12 destinations in the US will be allowed to opt for facial recognition procedure at the departure gates which would reduce the identity checking to just two seconds or even less.
The 12 destinations are New York, Newark, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, DC, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.
"Passengers travelling on Emirates flights would not need pre-registration. They may also choose not to undergo biometric identity checking," said the company.
It assured its customers that it would not store their biometric records, adding that the US CBP would be handling their date in a secure way, according to Al Bayan.