Bn etween January and mid-March 2020, Philadelphia International Airport (IATA: PHL) evaluated biometric facial recognition systems supplied by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), NEC and SITA at three international gates. The photos taken of passengers before boarding their flights were compared with images stored in government databases, thereby obviating the need for manual checking of passengers' passports. In 1996, the United States signed into law the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. It was, however, only fully implemented when the US President Donald Trump signed an executive order that the programme be fully rolled out by October 2021. In short, the Act requires that, in the case of airports, photos be taken of arriving and departing international passengers and compared with photos held by the Department of Homeland Security, such as for passports or other travel documents. The primary objective is to eventually replace the manual checking of passports, but PHL's evaluation programme also sought to demonstrate that the systems could serve as a non-contact replacement for the manual checking of boarding passes as well.
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