DigiYatra launched at three airports for face scan entry

Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday launched the first phase of the Centre’s ambitious DigiYatra facility for three airports where entry and boarding will be made more seamless with the use of a facial recognition system.

The minister launched the system for Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi airports from Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in the national capital, and said data shared for it will be stored in a decentralised manner.

As part of the second phase, the system will be launched in Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Vijayawada by March next year, he said.

The DigiYatra facility will allow passengers to link their travel and identity documents and create a facial scan beforehand, which will do away with the need for them to produce boarding passes or identity cards when they arrive at an airport, drop their baggage, or proceed for boarding. Instead, passengers will need to show their face to a facial recognition camera to authenticate themselves.

Amid concerns over data theft and privacy issues, Scindia said the data shared for DigiYatra will be saved in an encrypted format in a decentralised manner.

“First, we thought of a centralised system that would house all the data but then issues of privacy, data theft, rightfully came up. So, we moved to a decentralised system which would house the passenger information... on the mobile phones of every single passenger,” he said.

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“We have moved to a decentralised system and your data is going to be in an encrypted format and it is going to be residing only in your (passenger) mobile phone... 24 hours after your travel, that data is mandatorily going to be purged from the servers at that airport,” he added.

The data that a passenger will upload will get completely wiped out in 24 hours even though it is protected by blockchain technology, Scindia said.

Blockchain refers to what is known as a distributed ledger system, which allows for consistency and transparency of information.

Scindia said the secured and encrypted information on a passenger’s phone will be provided to the airport only 24 hours before the journey.

DigiYatra will provide a seamless process from the entry point until the embarkation point on planes, and no identification or boarding pass has to be shown by the passengers, Scindia said.

“It used to take around 10 seconds earlier but today, I could see passengers entering the airport in a few seconds,” Scindia said.

He also said the use of FRT is helping save time for passengers at airports across the world.

“We have many examples across the globe. In Dubai, the processing time has come down by almost 40% and the adoption rate of FRT has gone up. Similarly at Atlanta airport, the passenger time has come down by almost nine percent per flight which is a huge advantage. At Narita too, it has reduced by almost two-thirds from what it used to be,” he said.

Both Delhi and Bengaluru airports began their trial runs on August 15 with a beta version of FRTs.

The service is available for users of both iPhones and Android-based smartphones, Scindia said.

For availing the service, a passenger has to register details on the DigiYatra app using Aadhaar-based validation and a self image capture. In the next step, the boarding pass has to be scanned and the credentials are shared with the airport.

At the airport e-gate, the passenger has to first scan the bar coded boarding pass and the facial recognition system installed at the e-gate will validate the passenger’s identity and travel document. Once this process is done, the passenger can enter the airport through the e-gate.

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The passenger will have to follow the usual procedure to clear security and board the aircraft.

Officials at Delhi and Bengaluru airport said passengers of Air India, Air Asia India, Vistara and IndiGo will be able to use the facility as of now.

“As of now, the facility will be available at Delhi’s terminal 3,” an airport official said, asking not to be named.

“If the details stored show a passenger with a different name, then it will immediately be flagged by the system,” the official added.