Air Canada is set to introduce facial recognition technology at the gate, but the move is leading to questions about data storage and personal privacy.

The carrier is the first airline in Canada to introduce the technology on a volunteer basis, at Maple Leaf lounges in Toronto, Calgary and San Francisco.

The hope is that the new technology will help streamline the boarding process, but questions remain about how the information collected will be stored and used.

Local tech blogger Kevin Andrews says the company is offering assurances about who can access the information and how long it’s stored.

He says the airline is assuring that the passenger data is encrypted and stored securely, and used exclusively for digital identification purposes only. They say they’ve also implemented a strict data retention policy, says Andrews “where all biometric data is automatically deleted 36 hours after the flight is departed,” and operates independent of any government or Nexus database.