Govt rolls out facial recognition system DigiYatra at Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi airports

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The Central government on December 1 launched its facial recognition system DigiYatra at Delhi, Bangalore and Varanasi airports, which will allow domestic passengers to seamlessly travel without an identification card.

The Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia launched the service at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. The service will enable passengers to travel paperless through biometric facial recognition technology (FRT), he said.

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To use this facility, one-time registration on the DigiYatra app is required using Aadhar-based validation and a self-image capture.

At the airport, passengers will have to scan their bar coded boarding pass, which they can download on their phone and the facial recognition system installed at the e-gate will validate their identity and travel documents. Passengers can then enter the airport through the e-gate.

An iris scan will confirm the identity of passengers who register on the DigiYatra application.

Their travel details will also be captured in this application and will be saved in an encrypted format in a decentralized manner.

The data will be saved in an encrypted format, for which blockchain technology is being used. The data is stored in passengers' phones and the data shared with the airport is purged 24 hours after the journey, the minister said.

Further, DigiYatra will ensure enhanced security at the airport as the passenger data is validated with airlines departure control system and only designated passengers can enter the terminal.

DigiYatra will be launched at four more airports, Hyderabad, Pune, Vijayawada and Kolkata by March next year.

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 government said.

The DigiYatra app is available on Android and ioS platforms. At the Delhi airport, the DigiYatra facility is currently available to passengers taking domestic flights from Terminal 3.