CLEAR is a biometric identity company founded in 2003 and relaunched under current leadership in 2010. It operates an identity platform that verifies individuals using facial recognition, iris scanning, and fingerprints, replacing physical IDs and passwords to enable frictionless access across both physical and digital environments. The company serves millions of members across North America.
CLEAR's most established product is its airport security expediting service, available at more than 60 locations across North America, which allows members to move through security checkpoints using biometric verification alone. The platform has since expanded into stadium and live-venue entry, letting members enter without physical tickets, and into digital identity verification - including a partnership with LinkedIn to help users confirm their identity online.
Technically, the company works across several biometric modalities - face, eye, and fingerprint recognition - alongside digital identity verification and physical access control systems. Engineering work spans the identity platform itself, edge hardware at checkpoints and venues, and the integrations that connect CLEAR's verification layer to partner systems and online use cases.
CLEAR describes its core mission as resolving the tension between security and convenience, a framing rooted in the post-9/11 security landscape that shaped the company's original founding. Under CEO Caryn Seidman Becker, who led the 2010 acquisition, the company has evolved from a single-use airport product into a broader identity platform with ambitions across physical and digital environments.
