Lufthansa testing biometric boarding passes
Biometric systems in European airports are not new - hell, iris scanners have been in use for border control in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport since 2001. But now Lufthansa, never shy to push the edge of travel-easing technologies, is at it again with biometric boarding passes in hopes of increasing safety and accelerating the check-in process. Working with Siemens, fingerprints are scanned at check-in and printed as barcodes directly on the boarding pass. When boarding, the barcode is then confirmed against the actual fingerprint to verify the identify of the passenger. Currently, it is only being tested with non-fingerprint-sanding Lufthansa staff in Frankfurt but could be rolled out as a live system within the year.
