No more standing in long queues, use face as ID on airports with new Digi Yatra rollout

Indian passengers can now board domestic flights hassle-free out of Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi airports by registering for a biometric facial recognition platform, DigiYatra (DY). It will enable paperless travel through biometric facial recognition technology, which means that a facial scan will confirm the identity of DY-registered passengers. All the travel details will be captured on this platform and passengers will not need to show any physical ID proof.

This technology will be launched with seven airports in the first phase, starting with Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi on Thursday. By March next year, the same facility will be launched in Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, and Vijayawada airports.

The aviation ministry has planned to take this technology further to all Indian airports gradually which will reduce the boarding time of passengers, making their travel hassle-free.

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Jyotiradiyta Scindia, the Minister of Aviation, said, "The project envisages travellers pass through various checkpoints at airports through paperless and contactless processing using facial features to establish their identity which could be linked to their boarding pass. To use this facility, one-time registration on DY 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."

The DY project is taken in the wake of the revival of post-Omicron-variant Covid cases, as long queues are back at airports right from terminal entry to check-in, security, and immigration. Though using DY is optional for passengers, for now, they can instead show their physical IDs as well, which will streamline the entire process of boarding passengers.

Scindia gave the example of Dubai International Airport which uses the same technology and is saving up to 40 per cent of the time required to be spent at the airport.

What is the process to enroll for Digi Yatra?

a) Passengers can generate a Digi Yatra ID in a central system by providing the following information:
1. Name, 2. Email Address, 3. Phone Number 4. Personal Information (Voter Id, Driving License, Aadhar, etc)

b) A Digi Yatra Id will be generated upon submission. This number can be used by passengers when booking their tickets. The airlines will send passenger data, including Digi Yatra IDs, to the departure airport.

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c) On their first trip, passengers must go to the airport's registration kiosk to have their ID validated.
1. In the case of Aadhar, verification will be done online. 2. CISF will manually verify any other id.
After successful verification, the passenger's photo will be added to the Digi Yatra profile in the central system.

What are the benefits of Digi Yatra for passengers?

1. No need to show a boarding pass or ID at multiple checkpoints.

2. Minimize human intervention that will help in less queuing time.

3. Enhanced security with system mapping the PNR of the passenger.

4. The airport operator will have real-time information on Passenger load and resource planning becomes better.

5. Airlines will be benefitted by knowing the passenger position in the airport.

Digi Yatra is built on four key pillars- Connected Passengers, Connected Airports, Connected Flying, and Connected Systems.