India: Facial recognition for entry to New Delhi, Varanasi and Bengaluru airports
Digi Yatra is conceived to achieve contactless, seamless processing of passengers
New Delhi: Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday launched Digi Yatra from the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, for three airports in the country, namely New Delhi, Varanasi and Bengaluru. Digi Yatra is conceived to achieve contactless, seamless processing of passengers at airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT).
The Minister said that the first phase of Digi yatra project launched at three airports envisages a traveller to pass through various checkpoints at the airports through a paperless and contactless processing using facial features to establish THE identity which could be linked to the boarding pass.
In the first phase, it will be launched at seven airports and for domestic flight passengers only. It will be available at four airports — Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, and Vijayawada — by March 2023. Subsequently, the technology would be implemented across the country.
To use this facility, one-time registration on Digi Yatra app is required using Aadhaar-based validation and a self-image capture.
The project has tremendous advantages of improving passenger convenience and ease of travel.
About the privacy features of the project, the minister said that keeping in mind the privacy, there is no central storage of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Passenger’s ID and travel credentials are stored in a secure wallet in the passenger’s smartphone itself. The uploaded data will utilise blockchain technology and all the data will be purged from the servers within 24 hours of use.
The minister said with Digi Yatra, India will now stand in the ranks of world-class airports like Heathrow in London and Atlanta in United States of America.
Elucidating on the benefits of Digi Yatra, the Minister said the example of Dubai Airport where passenger time up to 40 per cent was saved due to this technology.