Come February, your face will be your ID to board a flight

New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry on Thursday formally unveiled its voluntary “digiyatra” electronic identification scheme for passengers using electronic facial recognition that will make the flying experience quicker and smoother for passengers wanting to avail of this.  For this, passengers will have to create a digiyatra ID in a Central system expected to be ready by February 2019, giving details such as name, email ID, mobile number and any one identity proof — either a voter ID, driving licence or aadhaar number and furnishing the digiyatra identity number allocated by the central system at the time of booking tickets. 
Once the passenger reaches the airport, unique facial recognition will be captured electronically and linked to his or her digiyatra id. 

Thereafter, movement will be quick through special e-gates for check-in, security checks and boarding to the aircraft. Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports will be the first to launch this as a pilot project by the end of February next year while the state-run AAI will launch this initially at Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune and Vijayawada airports by April next year.  Officials said the unique facial recognition would be voluntary and those passengers wanting to travel without this e-identification can continue to do so as done currently.

The scheme was announced on Thursday in the presence of Civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu who said  the Digiyatra would “provide a pan-India powerful platform for future”. The unique facial recognition recorded by the camera from various angles will capture expressions as well to ensure that it would differentiate even between identical twins. While initially, finger-printing was being considered for the electronic identification, it was later decided to use the facial recognition as it was considered more comprehensive, officials said on Thursday.