In the next 5 years, passports could become quaint objects of nostalgia, thanks to biometric technology, which will use facial and retinal recognition software to verify travelers’ identities. It’s only a matter of time, then — considering the speed with which the larcenous members of our species get around obstacles planted in their way by the relatively scrupulous members — for a market in forcibly extracted eye balls to emerge and thrive.
“It’s about optimization,” said Alex Covarrubias, vice president of the Latin American division of SITA, the primary provider of technology services to airports around the world. “You wouldn’t have to use a boarding pass or a cellphone; your boarding pass is your face.”
A more immediate development for Mexico’s airports is the planned installation within about a year of full-body scanners, by now ubiquitous in U.S. airports but hitherto non-existent in Mexican ones.
Behind both the biometric technology and the full-body scanners is the Merida Initiative, an accord between Mexico and the United States brought into being by the administrations of Felipe Calderon and George W. Bush in 2007, the aim of which is to combat drug-smuggling, money laundering and terrorism by improving security measures and technology (mainly south-of-the-border).
Under the Merida initiative, the TSA is working with its Mexican counterpart, the DGCA, to arm Mexico’s airports with the aforementioned technologies, in addition to beefing up surveillance with the introduction of the Bosch Video System 5.5, which can operate a closed-circuit network of over 2,000 cameras placed at strategic points around a given airport.
Whether technology is being developed allowing for travelers to simply teleport themselves and their belongings from point A to point B in the blink of an eye — thus rendering the odious, soul-crushing entity that is the airport obsolete — isn’t known at this time.