By Paul Walsh, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Delta passengers arriving at the Twin Cities airport are now able to check in their bags at self-service kiosks, with one of them equipped with facial-recognition technology as part of the goal of speeding up the preboarding process.

The four machines debuted Monday morning at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, the airline’s second-largest hub.

Verifying passenger identification by technologically matching the traveler’s face with a passport photo is being rolled out on a trial basis solely at the Twin Cities airport. Atlanta-based Delta said this is a first for U.S. carriers.

Travelers will first scan their passports before a camera scans the passenger’s face to confirm identity. Delta said it will not store travelers’ facial images.

Delta, in a partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, also is testing the same technology at international boarding gates in Atlanta and New York.

“We expect this investment [in the four machines] and new process to save customers time,” said Gareth Joyce, Delta’s senior vice president for customer service and cargo.

Jeramie Scott of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told CBS News last week that “implementation of the use of biometrics needs to be scrutinized very closely.”

Delta has said that self-service bag drops could allow it to process twice as many customers per hour vs. the traditional person-to-person baggage check-in.

The airline said it spent $600,000 on the self-service bag drops at MSP, where Delta is the dominant provider of commercial airline service.