An announcement was made by the officials of Orlando International Airport that it will become the first U.S. airport which will be processing all arriving and departing passengers with facial-recognition equipment.

The move is representing an expansion of a Customs and Border Protection experimental program which already placed cameras at 13 airports for screening the passengers leaving the country or returning.

In the verification process, a camera scans the traveler’s face to compare it to Department of Homeland Security travel databases which takes less than 2 seconds and has a 99 percent match rate.

CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said: “We are at a critical turning point in the implementation of a biometric entry-exit system, and we’ve found a path forward that transforms travel for all travelers”.

The ultimate goal is to quickly and efficiently electronically screen passengers. The cameras are small and easy to install.

Harrison Rudolph, an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at the Georgetown University Law Center said: “U.S. citizens at these airports can opt out, but the agency is not doing an adequate job letting Americans know they can opt out”.

“We’re not talking about one gate,” he said. “We’re talking about every international departure gate, which is a huge expansion of the number of people who will be scanned. Errors tend to go up as uses go up.”

Formal rules are implemented before the program is expanded as two U.S. senators sent a letter last month to the Department of Homeland Security urging that.

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