Everyone Sees Something Different On Delta’s New Face Recognition Airport Display

It can be hard to find your flight information on the giant screens at the airport. Delta passengers traveling through Detroit will have a much easier time as a new display being installed there tailors the on-screen information to whoever is looking at it.

The displays, developed by a company called Misapplied Sciences, will be ready to greet passengers at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Most modern display makers pride themselves on the expansive viewing angles of their TVs or computer monitors, ensuring that even people viewing the screen from the sides see the same thing in terms of color and contrast. Misapplied Sciences created a display technology called Parallel Reality that can change the look of the screen depending on the angle of view.

Misapplied Sciences isn't keen on revealing exactly how its tech works, but the company's website vaguely describes how the technology works.

Passengers traveling with Delta will see only the details for their specific flight on the screen, even when several of them are crowded around it. It sounds like a nightmare, but if it works as promised, the information is only visible to the passenger while they look at the display. How do you know who is looking at the Parallel Reality display and where they are? A person's facial recognition is visible.

Privacy has to be sacrificed in order to get into an airport, but Delta Air Lines has been leaning on the use of facial recognition technology for a long time. The airline launched a facial recognition pilot program at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport that allowed passengers to use face-recognition kiosks to check bags and avoid line-ups.

Delta insisted the service wasn't mandatory and promised that passenger facial scans wouldn't be stored, and is making the same claims here. When users walk up to the screen with their boarding pass in hand, it will lock onto their face and show their private flight information in a way that only they can see. Those who have already signed up for Delta's "digital identity" service need to walk up to the display to be identified and pointed in the right direction.

Is living in a Orwellian state worth it if it makes the airport experience slightly less stressed?