Aviation: Make your face your boarding pass at airports: how to get your Digi Yatra ID; benefits explained here

You can prepare to bid goodbye to the mind-numbing waste of time at airports, not to mention the inconvenience caused to all concerned. Come April 2019, as many as six Indian airports will have a face-recognition system in place which will eliminate the need of boarding passes. The Civil Aviation Ministry today unveiled the policy on the biometric-based digital processing of passengers at airports called “Digi Yatra”.

"Digi Yatra Central Platform will be operational by end of February, 2019. Bangalore & Hyderabad International Airports will be ready with pilot implementation by end of February, 2019. Airport Authority of India (AAI) intends to roll out the programme initially at Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune & Vijayawada by April, 2019," said the ministry.

Bengaluru Airport has partnered with Vision Box to implement the facial recognition. Watch this video illustrating the functionality:

Digi Yatra is a Facial Recognition based passenger processing which is a common standard being adopted the world over. To provide a seamless experience right from the entry to the airport up to boarding the aircraft, DigiYatra will have a centralised registration system for passengers.

How to get the Digi Yatra ID:

Passengers can create Digi Yatra ID in a central system by providing the following details:
* Name
* Email ID
* Mobile Number
* Details of Identity (Voter Id, Driving License, Aadhar etc) (Aadhaar is not mandatory)

On submission, Digi Yatra ID will be created. Passengers can quote this number while booking the ticket. Passenger data including Digi Yatra ID will be passed on to departure airport by the airlines.

On first travel, a passenger has to go to registration kiosk at the airport for validating the ID.

* In case of Aadhaar the verification will be online.
* In case of other ID, CISF will manually verify.
* On successful verification, the photo of passengers will be added to Digi Yatra profile in the central system.

"In case a passenger opted for Aadhaar based verification, the identity will be verified online. On successful verification, facial biometric will be captured and stored in the Digi Yatra ID profile of the passenger," said Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Aviation.

How it will work:

* At the entry point E-Gate the passenger will scan his boarding pass or e-ticket (Print or a soft copy in mobile).
* On scanning the barcode/ QR code the system will validate the passenger details and flight details.
* Digi Yatra ID will verify the identity by Face Recognition.
* On successful verification of Ticket and Digi Yatra ID, e-Gate will open.
* Also, Face with ticket PNR is made into a single token for the rest of the journey at the airport.
* Passenger will gain entry to the security area and aircraft Boarding through e-Gate operated on Facial Recognition System

A successfully registered passenger can go directly to the entry point  E-Gate of the airport and scan the barcode/ QR code of the ticket/ Boarding pass.

“A camera will capture the face for comparing with DigiYatraID Photo. On successful verification of the travel details and facial matching, the E-Gate will open. The system will also generate a token in the system combining the face of the passenger with PNR of the ticket so that at subsequent checkpoints the ticket details will be available on face recognition,” said Rajiv Nayan Choubey, Secretary, MoCA.

“At check-in counter or at the Self Bag Drop counter, the passenger will be identified by face and there is no need to show any document or ID for this purpose. The passenger will gain entry to the security check area through an E-Gate by facial recognition. Similarly at the boarding gate also the passenger will be identified by face for entering  through an E-Gate for boarding the aircraft.”

Watch This Zee Business Video:

Benefits of Digi Yatra ID:

* Will encourage paperless travel.
* Security will benefit from the ability of the technology to verify the passenger at every checkpoint in a non-intrusive way.
* No more missing passenger causing departure delays.
* Intentional Boarding pass exchange by passenger or wrong boarding by mistake will not happen.
* Pax need not show boarding pass or ID at multiple checkpoints.
* Minimum human intervention. Less queuing time.
* Only bona-fide passenger will be allowed entry at every checkpoint.
* Airport operator will have real-time information on Passenger load and resource planning becomes better.
* Airport throughput will be enhanced.