A steady stream of passengers handpicked by AMR's American Airlines showed up yesterday at a sectioned-off area of National Airport's baggage claim to submit to the scans, present two forms of government identification and fill out a form that will be used to perform a criminal background check. . . .
Steve Daniels leaned forward for a machine to take a photo of his eye, then placed his right index finger on a small digital scanner. Instantly, a large black and white image of his fingerprint appeared on a screen. The image wiggled slightly as Daniels moved his finger.

"Wow!" he said.
Within seconds, Daniels, a computer consultant whose company is based in Annapolis, joined 125 other local travelers who signed up yesterday to become "registered travelers" at Reagan National Airport. The test project, which aims to give frequent fliers a quicker pass through security checkpoints, is already underway at four other airports.

It relies on the latest biometric technologies to verify a passenger's identity with increased precision. Digital fingerprint scans and photographs are already used to identify foreigners traveling on a visa, and U.S. officials plan to encode a facial recognition technology into passports.
"It was fun -- it was also a little weird," said Mark Senak, an Arlington resident who signed up for the program yesterday and said he had never had his iris scanned. "I travel so much that anything that can lessen the hassle is worth it."

The link for this article located at Sara Kehaulani Goo is no longer available.