Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 4 APRIL: Facial recognition System, which is part of the Digi Yatra initiative of the government for providing passengers seamless and hassle-free experience at airports, is to be implemented in a phased manner. The first phase is planned at Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune, Vijayawada, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad Airports by March 2023.
Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation Gen. (Dr) V. K. Singh (Retd), today, informed that preliminary testing of the Digi Yatra Biometric boarding system with registration for the ‘Day of Travel’ at these airports has been completed.
The requirement of security is dynamic in nature. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the regulatory authority for civil aviation security in the country, in consultation with other concerned agencies and stakeholders, reviews the security arrangements at airports from time to time and upgrade the same as per requirement, he added.
FRT has not yet been introduced at any of the airports in India. However, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is working on a project of FRT-based Biometric Boarding System as part of the first phase of Digi Yatra Implementation at seven airports.
On the safeguards taken by the government to prevent the leakage of passenger data, registering for the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem is optional for passengers. For availing the Digi Yatra services, passengers will need to send the travel details (Pax details, PNR and Facial Biometrics) through an app to the Biometric Boarding System of the respective departing airport.
If for a particular journey, the passenger does not want to avail the Digi Yatra services then they have an option to not send the data and use the existing manual process at airports, he informed.
“The Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem envisages assessments (by independent teams to assess the level of security and system resilience to protect PII) and periodic audits by governing or regulatory bodies twice every year. Facial recognition is as per Industry ISO standards with best in class National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) listed algorithms complying to Data Privacy and Data protection requirement as laid down by government,” he said.
Tags: #FacialRecognitionSystem #FRS #CivilAviationMinister #Airports #Kolkata #NIST #BCAS
