Clear and its dedicated security lines have turn into a standard sight across major airports throughout the U.S. and globally in cities including Amsterdam, Montreal and Rome.
Caryn Seidman Becker had a vision to rework the safety a part of the travel experience when she bought the corporate now referred to as Clear out of bankruptcy alongside co-founder Ken Cornick in 2010, aiming to make the experience easier, with less friction for travelers while also making the safety process safer and secure.
But as identity and security challenges grow in an age of AI, deepfakes and bad actors, Seidman Becker sees loads of room to grow beyond the airport.
“Considered one of the things I’ve said at Clear for quite some time is we wish to go from 12 times a yr to 12 times a day,” she told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin in a recent interview for the CNBC Changemakers Highlight series. “That was the common [number of] times that travelers were using it within the early days, and I do think that there are such a lot of opportunities to make use of it in your day by day life today and where we are able to go,” she said.
Seidman Becker was named to the 2025 CNBC Changemakers list.
Considered one of the longer term areas of growth she sees for the corporate is providing security around legal document signature. For a long time, that role has been served by notaries, but in a post-Covid world where digital signatures have turn into more common, concerns over who is definitely signing something have gotten a problem.
“Really knowing the identity behind the document and knowing who you’re and what it’s best to have access to — it’s the necessity to strengthen security,” Seidman Becker said.
CLEAR Secure enrollment terminals are shown near a TSA security location at Midway Airport in Chicago, Illinois, August 23, 2024.
Mike Blake | Reuters
In April, Clear signed a partnership with Docusign, allowing users to link their biometrically verified information with their accounts. That way, signers can know their information is secure while those receiving the documents know who truly signed it.
Seidman Becker says most of the issues that Clear has tackled related to identity fraud on the airport are increasingly becoming a risk focus contained in the corporate enterprise.
“Criminals aren’t just hacking on, they’re logging on,” she said. “It’s easier than ever to make use of fake credentials to get within the front door,” she said, noting the increasing variety of incidents involving latest employees faking their identities and providing fraudulent documents, and other cybersecurity attacks based around infiltrating company accounts and networks.
That is leading Clear to latest opportunities where its technology will be used to prove individuals are who they are saying they’re. That features Uber, which is using Clear for rider verification, and access management software company Okta, enhancing authentication through Clear’s biometric protection.
In June, Clear partnered with hiring software firm Greenhouse to let job candidates confirm who they’re, and at the identical time help employers speed up the applicant to onboarding process.
“You possibly can onboard from an interview perspective, and be certain that you just’re bringing on the one that they are saying they’re, after which after they show up on day one, they’re actually the individual that you hired,” Seidman Becker said.
By 2028, as much as 25% of job applicants could possibly be fake, using profiles generated by deepfakes and identity spoofing, in keeping with Gartner data cited by Clear and Greenhouse within the partnership announcement.
Seidman Becker said all of it comes back to the concept that “an ID document shouldn’t be an identity,” and is now being amplified further by the rise of AI.
“Synthetic identities and deep fakes are easier and more prevalent than ever,” Seidman Becker said. “From a solutions perspective, it’s why you would like a multi-layered approach to identity that is not only facial.”
“You possibly can’t just take an image of a face and assume that it’s that person, it’s not applicable,” she said.
As the longer term of identity verification continues to evolve, Seidman Becker said that one in every of the core values at the guts of the corporate is “embrace change.”
“I feel change is the one thing that is constant, and while you accept that, you are continually making decisions, seeking to the longer term, and knowing that you’ve to evolve,” she said. “It is not a alternative.”
Seidman Becker said that while the corporate began with a view of reworking the airport security line, her job as a pacesetter is “to look forward, that the iPod could turn into the iPhone.”
“In case you stay still as an organization, you is not going to be here,” she said. “You’ve got seen so many firms turn into irrelevant, and to know that is feasible keeps you moving forward. It’s a pacesetter’s job to go searching corners.”
Watch the complete Changemakers Highlight video above for more from Seidman Becker on the longer term of security tech.
