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Qantas flyers can use their smartphone as their passport in a biometric trial launched this week.
Qantas and airport IT partner SITA say the trial is a first of its kind. Participants store their passport details and photos in Qantas’ facial-recognition app. Then, their passport data is matched to their face via cameras at the airport.
Qantas is conducting the trial at Brisbane’s airport through mid-December for flights to Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
The trial isn’t an end-to-end solution. Passengers still have to present passports for immigration and security. Still, it’s an early step toward extending air travel biometric capabilities beyond airports.
A number of airports around the world, including Atlanta, have begun trialing end-to-end biometric journeys, in which flyers submit to identity verification through facial recognition at the check-in kiosk, then go hands-free all the way to the plane.
After check-in, passengers in the Atlanta trial won’t have to display a boarding pass or passport at bag check, security or the boarding gate.
Ultimately, trials like Qantas’ could lead to an even broader biometric journey, in which an international flyer doesn’t have to produce a passport even once at the airport.
Source: travelweekly.com