Houston airports have trialled a great idea of combining their existing surveillance systems (which given the threat levels in the last decade must be substantial) with predictive customer service models to deliver streamlined processing of customers, and a tool to better understand the bottlenecks and natural flow of traffic through the airport.
Use of technology in situations like this gives a very different skew on hearing the voice of the customer, which I think is a good balance given the sometimes biased feedback we know market feedback can be susceptible to. And rather than waiting for situations to occur that could give rise to customer complaints, such as lengthy check in queues, these systems will in time predict potential operational problems and flag for the necessary action well ahead of a crisis point.
Does it raise privacy concerns? Of course it will, but the technology is there whether we like it or not, and the fact that the positive aspects can outweigh any negative ones is certainly encouraging. I'd be more concerned about the security of data storage and access retrieval rather than being watched by a supercomputer as I traverse the airport terminal! I would just hope that the supercomputer prioritizes it's no-fly-list facial recognition software before the long-queue-detection-algorithm, lest I be queue jumped by a terrorist.
The emphasis here for professionals and businesses who care about customer service is the shift from reactive to proactive strategies. Given the horrendous encounters many people often experience in airports, I would imagine technology like this may be greeted with applause rather than suspicion.
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