FACE RECOGNITION: PASSENGERS’ BIOMETRICS
Rather than wait in a long line for border control or a boarding pass, all that a passenger has to do is pass through an electronic turnstile, place their hand on a special display, or look into a camera. They won’t even need to look for their ID document or boarding pass. Their fingerprints or photograph will be instantly checked and validated against the databases maintained by the airline, the police, and the border control. If the results are positive, the turnstile doors will open without any input from an airport employee. Flight boarding follows the same principle. After the passenger’s biometrics are scanned and checked, the information is forwarded to the airline’s system, the boarding process is registered as complete, and the passenger takes their seat on the plane. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the number of people traveling by plane is to reach 7.8 billion people by 2036, which is twice as high as the current passenger traffic. This will increase the load on airports, which are already suffering from insufficient infrastructural performance and safety, even with the current traffic. To address this challenge, airports will need to hire more staff, which will result in greater costs. At the same time, the waiting lines will not be getting any shorter, and travelers will be disappointed as they face further inconvenience. The wider application of biometric technology in air travel will help prevent an infrastructural crisis through transforming airports into digital spaces that will offer the following benefits:
- greater operational efficiency,
- competent real-time passenger traffic management,
- time-effectiveness,
- automated check-in and departure formalities,
- greater service comfort and quality levels,
- rapid boarding with minimal obstacles and efforts,
- security,
- zero risk of forgery due to the unique nature of biometric data,
- peace of mind and more spare time for shopping and entertainment.