The Central government is working to equip the airports with facial recognition system in a phased manner, reports India.com. The first phase is planned at Delhi, Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune, Vijayawada, Bangalore and Hyderabad Airports by March next year, Minister of State for Civil Aviation General (Retd) VK Singh said in Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Earlier in December last year, Singh had said that 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 four Airports (Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata, and Vijayawada). He added that the proposed Digi Yatra Central Eco-system is planned to go live in March 2022. It is to be scaled up in a phased manner for adoption across various airports of the country.
On being asked about the safeguards taken by the government to prevent the leakage of passenger data, he said that as per the Digi Yatra policy, registering for the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem is optional to the passenger. For availing the Digi Yatra services, passengers would send the travel details (Pax details, PNR and Facial Biometrics) through an app to the Biometric Boarding System of the respective departing airport. (Source: India.com)