What was top of the agenda when our excellent speakers across the travel ecosystem gathered in Washington D.C. for Identity Week America 2023? The event, which attracted thousands of well-connected attendees in the ecosystem, did not miss the chance to speak to the most pertinent issues and challenges around identity.
Travel
Across travel, we heard headlining topics being discussed at length by senior level executives who are responsible for U.S. national security strategy, secure travel ecosystems and immigration control, implementing biometrics and digital identity solutions across (sea and land) border points.
In relation to presentations given by the Department of Homeland Security and CBP, the travel industry reaffirmed legacy commitments for securing travel. Over decades, these organisations have bred revolutionary travel programmes such as, the TSA PreCheck scheme, the DHS S&T Remote ID Validation Technology demo and CBP’s strategy for biometric deployments.
While U.S. is progressing towards cohesion, the event was not without areas of improvement for more coordination. Kenneth Gantt, who holds Deputy Director position at DHS OBIM, clarified that while digital innovation has advanced significantly, the human factor should never be forgotten. Europe, Canada, Asia and Zealand were named as regions that are successfully tackling fraud, whilst the U.S. he said has some way to go to consolidate its executive order on fraud and Login.Gov.
Diane Sabatino, who attended the event again on the behalf of CBP, said biometrics have had a ‘fantastic’ impact on processing 390 million travellers and intercepting 1900 imposters this year.
98% of people were able to be processed through e-gates on entry and 94.8% on exit travel.
The CBP continues to scale mass biometric deployment, nurture public/private partners, and enable global entry portals.
