US Customs and Border Protection has deployed a Vision-Box system for biometric authentication of electronic passports at New York's JFK International Airport.The technology, also trialled at Washington DC's Dulles International Airport earlier this year, allows for a highly accurate biometric matching of a traveler's face with the facial image stored on the identification document's e-chip.Vision-Box is providing the vb e-pass desktop, as part of a facial recognition solution provided to CBP by Unisys Corporation, a leading global IT firm, for this initial deployment at three JFK arrival terminals.The deployed solution supports a simple process: After authenticating and reading the chip of the traveler's electronic passport, the vb e-pass desktop takes a biometric quality photo of the passenger's face, matches the captured facial image against the photo stored in the e-passport, and gives a probability match based on multiple facial features.If the image match probability is low, the passenger may be flagged for additional screening. Dr. Michael Petrov, Vision-Box North America Managing Director, commented, “By the end of this year every non-expired U.S. passport in circulation will be electronic, while the majority of them already are. The deployed solution completes the lifecycle loop of the e-passport by providing reliable means of checking that the passport belongs to the holder, thus helping address a significant security threat of document swapping with unfortunate precedents documented in other parts of the world. It was reported, for example, that a known Australian jihadist was able to leave Australia for the battlefield in Syria using his brother's passport. His travel could have been prevented with the use of vb e-pass desktop.”The accuracy of the system is ensured by strict compliance with ISO standards for image capture and the use of one of the industry's best face matching algorithms.Complementing the new process at immigration booths, Vision-Box has already started installing face matching technology at APC (Automated Passport Control) kiosks used by CBP for the inbound immigration processing at a dozen of the largest US international airports, with Orlando International Airport becoming the first to go live in October 2015.

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