The Indian civil aviation ministry has released a policy that aims to shorten passenger processing times at airports by using biometric data.
Coined "Digi Yatra", New Delhi aims to launch the platform by February 2019 at Bangalore and Hyderabad airports. Thereafter, airports operated under the state-owned Airport Authority of India, such has Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune and Vijayawada will come onboard with the programme in April 2019.
Minister of state of civil aviation, Jayant Sinha explains that "Digi Yatra" uses facial recognition technology "which is a common standard being adopted the world over". The government will establish a centralised registration system for passengers that will capture their personal details as they book their tickets. This information will be shared with the departure airport, where facial biometric data will again be captured.
"Passengers will no longer need to show their tickets [and/or] boarding passes and their physical identity cards at many of the checkpoints at the airport, since the ticket/ Digi Yatra Biometric Boarding System boarding pass is integrated with the identity document. This will lead to reduced queue waiting times, faster processing times and simpler processes," says the ministry.
As major airports battle with overcrowding due to a travel boom, New Delhi says the programme will enable existing airports to handle more passengers before additional infrastructure is in place.
“The passengers are expecting better facilitation at the airport and security remains a key concern in air travel. Leveraging technology is the only solution to meet such challenging requirements”, adds secretary of the ministry of civil aviation RN Choubey.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
