US to collect biometric details of foreigners at ten airports

TIN news:        The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will collect biometric and biographic information of foreign travelers departing from the country on selected flights.
 
The Biometric Exit Mobile (BE-Mobile) Air Test will be implemented at ten airports including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare, Newark Liberty , John F Kennedy, Dallas Fort Worth, George Bush Intercontinental and Washington Dulles.
 
Slated to be carried out over a year, the test will evaluate both a new biometric exit concept of operations at selected airports and CBP's outbound enforcement policies and workforce distribution procedures.
 
The new biometric exit concept will see CBP officers using a wireless handheld device at the departure gate to collect biometric and biographic data.
 
The tests are likely to be carried out on pre-selected outbound international flights that will either be selected randomly or to correspond with the existing outbound enforcement operations.
 
CBP officials will inspect the travel documents of passengers including passport, visa and lawful permanent resident card to determine if he needs to submit the relevant information.
 
Information of such travellers will be collected by swiping or inputting the information from the travel documents using the wireless handheld device.
 
The collected information will be used to create a biographic- departure record in CBP's database that will be paired with the biometric data to develop a complete, biometric-based departure record for the passenger.