Delta to Introduce Face-Scanning Baggage Drop

Delta has announced that facial recognition technology is making its way to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport this summer. The airline will be introducing four self-service bag drop machines, one of which will include technology that confirms the traveler's identity by matching a picture of their face with their passport photo.

Delta hopes the new feature will save customers time and free up Delta agents to "seek out travelers and deliver more proactive and thoughtful customer service."

It's the first technology of its kind used by any of the US airlines and comes on the heels of Delta introducing a baggage-tracking system allowing customers to see where their luggage is all the way from the plane to the carousel. Tokyo's Narita airport unveiled a similar self-service bag drop machine in March, but the device did not include a biometric feature like Delta's.

The machine in Tokyo is said to shorten the time to check a bag by 2-3 minutes, and other studies have shown that self-service baggage drops have the potential to process twice as many customers per hour.

Delta said the kiosks cost $600,000 and are currently in trial mode. The airline plans on collecting customer feedback before introducing the technology elsewhere.