TSA Verify

In April 2025, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) found itself in urgent need of solutions to modernize identity verification and speed processes ahead of the May 2025 REAL ID deadline. Two decades and multiple deadline extensions after Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005 to “set standards for the issuance of identification,” REAL ID enforcement was finally scheduled to begin.

After May 7, under the status quo, any traveler arriving at a TSA security checkpoint without REAL ID-compliant identification would have to undergo a laborious process requiring phone calls to the National Transportation Vetting Center (NTVC) and manual verification. This dated workflow threatened significant consequences for the public, such as travel delays and missed flights. 

To prevent post-REAL ID enforcement chaos, TSA partnered with Amazon Web Services and Deloitte for TSA Verify project. Initially designed to automate verification for travelers without any ID, the project became more urgent as it would now also need to cover those without REAL ID-compliant ID.

Within six weeks, and with TSA IT leaders, including CTO Matt Gilkeson, at the helm, the TSA Verify team was able to successfully develop and demonstrate its minimum viable product — a cloud-based mobile identity verification application designed for TSA personnel. The app introduced direct digital access to federal verification databases, offering significant efficiency gains over manual, phone-based verification. 

Several months of testing and refinement resulted in production deployment to six airports by Sept. 30. The TSA Verify system currently processes several hundred transactions per day, streamlining verification and reducing wait times for each of those travelers. By leveraging AWS’ cloud capabilities, TSA is able to tap into unparalleled scalability and availability, increasing efficiency while maintaining rigorous security standards that are critical to the nation’s airports.

Between AWS’ cloud architecture expertise, the Deloitte development team that built the application and multiple TSA departments, the project also represents the benefits of cross-functional collaboration and unified vision among stakeholders. Through this integrated approach, the team was able to rapidly develop and deploy new capabilities resulting in the accelerated six-week timeline.

Nationwide rollout is expected to be complete by 2026.

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