How AI is revolutionizing the international terminals of ATL

There is a world where US citizens who have recently arrived in Atlanta, they may not even need to withdraw their passport.

The customs and border guard process of manually reviewing American passports at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport was replaced by a tablet that captures images of passengers and compares them to the government’s image database.

You need to have easy access to your passport. However, if there is no problem, passengers can walk within seconds.

Caroline Snead experienced it first hand after returning from a trip to Greece.

“You walk to the computer and it scans your face and boom, you’re a bit uncomfortable with you,” she told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. But it’s “very seamless” and “easy,” she said.

“Enhanced Passenger Processing” is a major step in a decade-long process by the Department of Homeland Security, bringing facial recognition technology to the country’s airport work.

Upgrades are also underway regarding the department’s existing trusted travelers and global entry program, Thomas said.

Within a few weeks, Atlanta’s global entry line will have other types of camera totems that allow passengers to capture images of passengers as they pass by.

This is just one of many possible applications of artificial intelligence technology being explored at Atlanta Airport, officials told AJC.

“Enhanced passenger processing”

After 9/11, Congress passed several orders attempting to record the department to record the arrival and departure of non-US citizens by collecting biometrics.

It’s unfolding despite privacy and immigration rights advocates criticizing the rise in use. The consumer privacy advocacy group Epic has called facial recognition “an essentially dangerous and privacy-inducing surveillance technology that has been shown to be reliable and biased.”

The new customs process is for inbound passengers.

For international outbound passengers, Gates’ biometric totems capture faces in the same way, instead of manual passport checks.

The Atlanta Airport Pilot Program, which used Delta Air Lines, dates back to 2016 with an earlier version of this outbound biometric capture deployed by Delta in Atlanta Gates two years later.

The airport is expected to complete the installation of gate totems at all international gates on all airlines this year, Crissist, the airport’s chief information officer, told AJC.

Clay Thomas, port director of Atlanta’s Customs and Border Protection, told the AJC the new customs process has been operating in Atlanta for about six weeks. This is one of around 12 airports with technology.

Travelers can opt out instead and choose to meet the executives.

The system is “more refined” than the human eye, and he said it has an accurate rating of 98%. He estimated nationwide that the number of con artists they will acquire it has increased by at least 15-20%.

Furthermore, it will reduce the “administrative burden” on executives.

Given that the totem is wireless and fairly portable, teams can easily set up based on expected flights and demographics.

“It’s also improving waiting times for everyone,” CBP spokesman Rob Brisley said by reducing the need for executive hours for most U.S. citizens.

On every day, between 48 and 52% of Atlanta’s international inbound tourists are U.S. citizens, Thomas said.

future

The airline and the airport itself help pay for all these investments, including the circuit and server space hardware upgrades needed for new tablets.

These upgrades have cut back half the seconds it takes for a computer to process each person, Thomas said.

“We want to make the process much faster,” Christo said of the investment.

That investment is one of several ways airports can help AI improve its operations, he explained at a recent Airport Experts Conference in Atlanta.

Hartsfield-Jackson is trying to create an internal chatbot to help employees externally and internally on the airport website, he said.

We are embarking on a pilot program and exploring overlays of computer vision technology into security camera systems. This will help security experts automate how to sift footage from around 4,000 cameras across the airport.

“We can think about where this is heading, how we can improve airport security, and how to improve efficiency at the airport,” he said.

At the same time, the airport has invested tens of millions of dollars to double the total number of cameras on-site by about 7,000 times.

Airports are also considering the possibility of using self-driving vehicles to mow lawns, patrol outside the airport area, and using AI and predictive analytics for preventive maintenance purposes.

“We want to make sure we go ahead and take advantage of what technology has to offer, but like anything else, we have to start small,” he said.

Thomas said CBP is similarly continuing to look for new ways to leverage technology to reduce waits and lines throughout the process.

Another measure of improvement they are exploring is to eliminate the need for domestic passengers to reconfirm their bags before they can connect domestically, he said.

“This is just the beginning. We’re just really capturing what the future of travel modernization looks like,” Thomas said.

Ultimately, Crist told the crowd at the meeting that he predicted that this could one day be a security checkpoint or bag search, an airport experience that felt like it was before 9/11.

“You can walk through the facility without doing anything. You will come in. You will go to your gate. You are on your plane. You don’t have to stop anywhere.”

But for that to happen, you need to be aware of “who you are as soon as you enter the facility,” said Christ.

“We know why you’re there. We recognize you through computer vision. We recognize the objects you have.”

People will continue to sacrifice privacy for convenience, he predicted.

Snead, a recent university graduate who just used Atlanta’s new customs process, said her generation thinks she doesn’t always worry about being monitored “because it’s just our lives.”

“I would like to exchange my privacy for convenience. I have nothing to hide.”

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