American Airlines is launching ‘TSA Touchless ID’ for PreCheck passengers as flagged by JonNYC.
AA:
Is this new or old news? I know it was announced as coming soon in November but hadn’t heard it was finally rolled out for AAdvantage members— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) May 24, 2025 at 6:00 PM
This lets you skip the physical ID at eligible airport security checkpoints, by linking photos you’ve already provided to your identification. TSA has facial recognition devices, and they usually just verify you match your ID. But with this opt-in you skip the ID because they verify you match what they know about you already.
This is only available at Washington National airport right now, but is rolling out to more airports in the coming weeks.
You can opt in while checking in for a reservation or in your AAdvantagae profile. But to be eligible you need to have a Known Traveler Number in your AAdvantage account and a valid passport saved in your account as well, be at least 18 years old, and be hte only passenger in your reservation.
Here’s American’s internal guidance on the process:
Jason Rabinowitz asked, “why is American always last to stuff like this?”
Finally. Why is AA always last to stuff like this.
— Jason Rabinowitz (@airlineflyer.net) May 25, 2025 at 1:23 AM
And in fact, TSA has eeb using facial recognition to verify passenger identity using Customs and Border Protection data (e.g. from passport or visa) since March 2021.
The rollout started with Delta and United, first with Detroit and then Atlanta in June 2022. By January 2024, this had expanded to LAX, New York LaGuardia and New York JFK plus Chicago O’Hare. American has joined onto this. I’m not sure the upside for passengers, really, and as an old line civil libertarian I don’t like it. But I’m tilting at windmills and probably some of you will think this is great.
I’m a bit confused. It seems as though you still would have to get in front of the camera but could skip handing your ID to the mall cop. Really, that takes all of 3-5 seconds. I don’t see the big “time and hassle saver.” Maybe if airports actually do set up a separate Pre Check lane-I believe that when I see that. The number of times there’s 20 people in a Pre Check lane, one ID checker while 1-2 people in the non Pre Check lane with 2-3 ID checkers. Maybe TSA should work on that issue first.
@George N Romey The big timesaver is that you get a seperate line from even Precheck. At LGA last week, the Precheck line was several minutes long but there was no one in the Touchless ID line. Honestly I will be a huge fan of Touchless ID if it leads to CLEAR going six feet under.
Thank you for calling it National. I agree about the whole ethics issue of any ID but this is at least faster and painless. Remember, Orwell was an optimist.
TSA: YOU MUST HAVE REAL ID NOW OR YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO LEAVE YOUR HOME AGAIN!
ALSO TSA: Actually, there’s lots of ways you can travel without it.
So AA isn’t an investor in Clear but is now spending time and money to build out a capability I’ve had with Clear for some time.
I agree eventually everything will be biometrics (and am perfectly fine with it) but just seems like building a separate system when the capability already exists doesn’t make a lot of sense.
@ Gary — Delta has had this for like 2 years…
How does this differ from CLEAR which promised this for a fee and I still ended up being required to show passport/drivers license???????
I’m still irritated by this.
This is actually better than Clear, I’m curious what Clear claims their value proposition is.
Delta has had this working pretty well in ATL.
Just watched John Mulaney’s Everybody’s Live Episode 9 which was about ‘REAL ID’ sorta. Robbie was hilarious on that one. “And, what kinda car do you drive? Byyyeee!”
In Atlanta, this was faster than both PreCheck and Clear
TSA touchless is better than Clear because it requires several less steps than Clear.
Clear is pointless. To use Clear:
1) a Clear employee first uses a handheld device to scan pax’s BP (a completely unnecessary step/delay),
2) then a Clear employee operates a kiosk to scan pax’s BP and eyes (and often times that Clear employee needs to log into the Clear kiosk before it operates, which creates further delay),
3) then a DIFFERENT Clear employee uses a handheld device to walk the pax through the TSA kiosk (this often requires the Clear employee to scroll through names/photos of all pax who just used the Clear kiosk and is not then-known to that employee, leading to delays), at which point the Clear employee then swipes/taps the handheld device onto the TSA’s kiosk so that the TSA agent can verify the pax — THIS IS THE SAME EXACT KIOSK AND STEP THAT ANYONE CLEARING TSA MUST GO THROUGH. IT IS THE THIRD STEP IN THE FLOW PROCESS WHEN A PAX USES CLEAR, BUT IT IS TIHE FIRST (AND ONLY TOUCHPOINT/ID CHECK) STEP IN THE FLOW PROCESS WHEN A PAX DOES NOT USE CLEAR. HOW IN THE WORLD CLEAR IS SUPPOSED TO BE QUICKER, IS BEYOND ME.
The only value of CLEAR is (1) you don’t have to take out your ID (which touchless and digital ID cards both solve) and (2) it sometimes can save you a few minutes if the CLEAR line is significantly shorter than the TSA precheck line (but even then it’s rarely beneficial since the CLEAR line often does not have a dedicated TSA kiosk so you simply get dumped to the same kiosk that non-CLEAR uses use (of course after you to through extra steps 1 and 2 above).
Standard TSA precheck line only requires one touch point (and it’s the same action in no 3 above, the only difference is it’s the pax presenting their ID for scanning as opposed to the Clear employee scanning a handheld.
Touchless ID is no doubt better than Clear. It only requires step 3 — one touch point — and it’s simply the passenger presenting their face at the TSA kiosk.
Having said all that, I cleared at DCA this afternoon and the touchless lane was closed! TSA agent who scanned my DL (which was digital on my iphone since DCA has that feature as well) had no clue why the brand new touchless lane was closed.
Ridiculous that a married couple in one reservation can’t use Touchless ID.