The most accurate face recognition algorithms have demonstrated the capability to confirm airline passenger identities while making very few errors, according to recent tests of the software conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The findings, released today as Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) Part 7: Identification for Paperless Travel and Immigration (NISTIR 8381), focus on face recognition (FR) algorithms’ performance under a particular set of simulated circumstances: matching images of travelers to previously obtained photos of those travelers stored in a database. This use of FR is currently part of the onboarding process for international flights, both to confirm a passenger’s identity for the airline’s flight roster and also to record the passenger’s official immigration exit from the United States.
The results indicate that several of the FR algorithms NIST tested could perform the task using a single scan of a passenger’s face with 99.5% accuracy or better — especially if the database contains several images of the passenger.