The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is doubling down on its seamless travel strategy, particularly for Global Entry members, with enhanced passenger processing delivered through touchless entry systems. Working with global entry partners, Diane Sabatino – presenting at Identity Week America 2025 conference – shared their long-term vision built on biometric technologies, mobile applications, data sharing, and an ever stronger workforce presence.
In her speech, Sabatino announced that more than 803 million travellers have been processed to date using facial recognition systems , and that the technology continues to achieve match rates above 99%, ensuring absolute accuracy and efficiency in verifying identities at their critical ports of entry. From a vision nurtured two decades ago to move from biographic to strength biometric data capture, the agency has not stopped, or taken a back step at all, in yielding results in security.
CBP has recorded 22,000 positive interceptions, where individuals attempting to travel using false or fraudulent identities were detected through facial comparison.
Funds made available through the so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ passed earlier this year have increased CBP’s resources to protect global and citizen safety through their capacity and with the help of 5,000 additional CBP officers.
Frontline personnel and training to increase their situational awareness of identity fraud and documents crimes that could be encountered on the ground is a priority to support secure global entry, and at no point is biometric technology going to “replace people”, Sabatino confirmed.
“We are keeping frontline personnel in the loop,” she said, noting that officers remain so critical for situational awareness, secondary inspection, and traveller engagement and CBP is allocating funding for 5,000 additional border officers.
The workforce expansion, coupled with technology, is designed to address surging passenger volumes while maintaining security and service levels.
Through more mobile and digitalised travel processes, the transformation in travel will be data sharing initiatives, which will allow airlines and airports to share booking and flight data directly with CBP. She also spoke of fleet-wide data sharing agreements, designed to extend these benefits across carriers.
The success of these programmes, she emphasised, depends on continued collaboration: “We will continue to work with our airline and airport partners,” she said.
In line with Sabatino’s remarks, CBP recently embarked on Global Entry partnerships with countries including El Salvador to expand trusted traveller benefits internationally.
The expansion of the Global Entry app continues to streamline enrolment and verification, and ongoing improvements are being made to the Mobile Passport Control app. Deployment of ‘on-the-move’ camera entry systems and touchless portals allow travellers to be verified while walking through designated lanes rather than stopping at kiosks, all in aid of the rollout of simplified arrivals at America’s airports and seaports.
