Breezing through an airport will be a reality soon, thanks to facial recognition technology that will allow passengers to just walk through various check points without a need for any document verification. The process is already underway at airports in Delhi and Bengaluru, where facial recognition systems (FRS) were launched on August 15.

Currently in the beta stage, the technology, enabled by the DigiYatra app and a software developed by Portuguese company Vision Box, allows passengers to complete check-ins in reduced time. Sources privy to the developments told FE that within 6-12 months, the system will be fully operational, and passengers can simply walk through checkpoints from check-in to boarding.

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Sources added that implementation of this system aims to focus on two broad concerns — the heath and hygiene factor with reduced physical contact, and eliminating people without valid tickets and chances of document forgery.

At Bengaluru and Delhi airports, the time taken at the first point of contact, where the security personnel is posted, has already reduced to about seven seconds from roughly 25 seconds earlier.

The FRS is enabled primarily through the working of two mobile applications — the DigiYatra app and the DigiLocker app. Passengers need to upload a selfie on the DigiYatra app that matches the selfie with biometrics data linked to the Aadhaar number stored on DigiLocker.

“We’ve seen passengers go through the various points much faster and with reduced physical exchange of documents. The eventual idea is to have a seamless airport where technology validates your identity and ticket. Technically, this system can be rolled out in 6-12 months depending on how quickly airlines adapt,” sources said.

In Bengaluru, Vistara Airlines and AirAsia were the two airlines picked for the initial run, but now, sources said, “the ecosystem is nearly complete, with almost all domestic gates having e-gates. So if the airlines are ready, the airport can start using biometric processes for all checkpoints for all domestic airlines to start with,” said the source.

The system has, however, faced some hiccups since its launch, said a source. One, the pool of people using it is very small since it is only available on Android’s Play Store for now. Next, about 40% of the flyers do not have the DigiLocker app, and if documents like Aadhaar aren’t stored on the DigiLocker app, the process to upload a picture of the physical card is cumbersome and time-consuming. FE has learnt that the DigiYatra app would be available on the App Store by September 15.