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Wall Street company Clear offers a fast way around the long TSA lines at a number of large USA airports. Here's an article about it, https://www.fastcompany.com/90245393/clear-new-york-startup-speed-through-lines-at-airport-or-stadium
What's the pitch? You can sign up right at the airport in five minutes for $179 a year. If you are about to miss your flight because the TSA lines are an hour long, this might look like a trip saver. Of course there is a catch, they use biometric data: fingerprints, irises, faces... and a promise that your data is safe with them.
Clear's only domestic competition at airports is the Transportation Security Administration's service TSA PreCheck, which has more members (7 million), and is much cheaper ($85 for five years) and more widely available (200-plus airports). Another program, Global Entry, is run by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service to expedite passage of international travelers entering the United States. PreCheck and Global Entry both collect fingerprints from participating travelers but unlike Clear do not capture iris or facial scans. All three of the services—PreCheck, Global Entry, and Clear—worked with the Department of Homeland Security to develop tools that could predict the threat level of individual travelers, the "known traveler" model.
Clear is currently experimenting with an adaptation of this model that could be deployed at a vast number of non-airport venues. "In travel, prescreening programs like PreCheck and Global Entry create known travelers," Clear said in a statement to Fast Company. "As a qualified anti-terrorism technology, Clear believes creating known fan programs can continue to make experiences safer and easier." A former Clear executive put it this way: "If you wanted to do predictive analytics to show who at a stadium is more likely to bring a gun in, they have the ability to do that."
Here's the company pitch if anyone is interested : https://www.clearme.com/how-it-works/
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @11:06AM (3 children)
The "pre check" and "known traveler" stuff is complete nonsense. You go through the same phony security theater, you just have a shorter line. The line is shorter because most people are not paying the fee.
It is exactly the same as toll lanes, except that traffic delays are a real problem, and security delays are a self-inflicted problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @02:04PM
No not nonsense.
There is no point in getting rich if you can't use the money.
Taking advantage of this public resource lets the few enjoy being the few.
In moderation, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a useful outcome.
To be fair, everybody should have to wait in the same line.
(Perhaps even if you are on a private jet.)
Imagine if every member of Congress had to wait like this.
That would fix the TSA problem for everybody really quickly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @09:54PM (1 child)
How is this different from the halal certification scam?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @10:42PM
> How is this different from the halal certification scam?
You don't miss your plane because your meat isn't blessed?
You only give Clear your biometrics once??
You don't eat the security clearance???
Come on, these are completely different things, except that both are for-fee options that may make you feel better.