Aruba’s Queen Beatrix International Airport to Pilot the Facial Biometrics Entry Program

Beginning this week U.S. Customs and Border Protection (U.S. CBP) has initiated a pilot of their biometrics program at Aruba’s Queen Beatrix International Airport (Aruba Airport). It will involve the use of facial biometric technology to verify the identities of travelers re-entering the United States from Aruba. The pilot will be tested on a Delta flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport, which operates daily.

After the successful implementation by U.S. CBP of biometric identification pilots at several U.S. airports, U.S. CBP chose Aruba Airport as the first airport outside of the U.S. to conduct a trial of their facial recognition biometric technology. As with previous implementations of this technology, travelers have been eager and excited to participate in U.S. CBP’s new and innovative entry/exit process.

“We are very pleased that U.S. CBP has chosen to pilot this technology at Aruba Airport. We have been implementing this technology over the past several years at several of the airport’s border control points, and this pilot will be instrumental in taking our airport to the next levels of security and passenger service; and put us on a path to becoming one of the “best-in class” preclearance airports. Our past experiences with biometrics have been very successful and we are looking forward to working in collaboration with U.S. CBP on their pilot project, and we fully expect they will be successful in a full implementation of this technology” stated Aruba Airport Authority N.V. CEO, Mr. James Fazio.