Carnival Cruise Line and the CBP are introducing facial recognition checks for passengers at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal in New York City.
The new biometric checks will start this week for Carnival passengers embarking and debarking.
The first use of the facial recognition technology is expected be for passengers departing on the Carnival Venezia, capacity of 4090 passengers, on 19 June on a 4 day round trip to Bermuda
Passengers with U.S. passports, passport cards, or residence cards will be able to use the eight biometric kiosks.
How it works
Carnival captures the facial biometrics of each passenger as they check-in for the cruise or leave a ship to arrive into the U.S.
That photo is compared to the their existing passport or visa photo in DHS systems to biometrically verify their identity.
CBP says the process takes less than two seconds and is more than 98% accurate.
Every time a passenger boards or leaves the ship, Carnival takes another picture and compares that with the one taken at check-in. This cruise line uses this for identification purposes and to know if a passenger is onboard or offboard.
This use of facial recognition makes the embarkation and debarkation process faster and more efficient.
The biometric details are kept by Carnival for the duration of the cruise and deleted after the cruise.
Carnival also takes pictures of passengers throughout the voyage. Facial recognition is used to link these pictures to the passenger’s account.
Other U.S. seaports using biometric checks
Facial biometric comparison technology is used at 36 seaports, including:
- 28 in the the United States
- 4 in Puerto Rico
- 3 U.S. Virgin Islands
- Vancouver
The US states are:
Alabama, Alaska (2 locations), California (3 locations), Florida (7 locations), Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York (2 locations), Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington.
CBP has successfully implemented facial biometrics into the entry processes at all international airports, 238 of them, known as Simplified Arrival, and into the exit processes at 36 locations for air exit (international departures).
To date, almost 200 million passengers have participated in the biometric facial comparison process at air, land, and seaports of entry.
N.B. Image credit: CBP
