Processing of air passengers based on facial recognition tech begins

New Delhi, Dec 1:  Air passengers can get paperless entry at three selected airports including Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi to make air travel hassle-free through Digi Yatra launched on Thursday.

Digi Yatra is conceived to achieve contactless, seamless processing of passengers at airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). Officials said that the airport will use facial recognition software termed as "Digi Yatra" for entry.

Digi Yatra in the first phase, will be launched at seven airports. However, it has been initially launched at three airports including Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi on Thursday to be followed by four airports namely Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, and Vijayawada by March 2023.

Later, it would be implemented across various airports in the country. The service is currently being launched for domestic flights passengers only. Digi Yatra App is available on both IoS and Android.

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday launched Digi Yatra from the Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi for three airports -- namely Delhi, Varanasi and Bengaluru.

Speaking about the Digi Yatra project conceived by Digi Yatra Foundation under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Minister said that the project envisages a traveller pass through various checkpoints at the airports through a paperless and contactless processing using facial features to establish her identity which could be linked to the boarding pass.

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 privacy, there is no central storage of Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

A 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.

With Digi Yatra, India will now stand in the ranks of world class airports like Heathrow in London and Atlanta in the US.

Elucidating on the benefits of Digi Yatra, the Minister stated the example of Dubai Airport where passenger time up to 40 per cent was saved due to this technology.

A similar technology saved nine minutes per aircraft time at the Atlanta Airport.