Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) has started trials for facial biometric recognition system for three months. Portuguese firm Vision-Box is giving technical and software support. Incidentally, Vision-Box had set up its India office only last year. This initiative is part of the Ministry of Civil Aviation's "Digi Yatra" policy that aims to make passenger entry at all check points - airport entry, security check, aircraft boarding - seamless.
Biometric access system was experimented at Hyderabad airport in 2016. The Bengaluru airport has also tested it.
The Airports Authority of India is reportedly planning to implement this technology at four airports - Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune and Vijayawada. While participation in trials is voluntary and at discretion of passengers, once the technology is fully implemented, every passenger will have to share his government ID (any of these - Aadhaar, passport, driving licence, voter ID) and facial biometrics with airport operators. Since there's no personal data protection law in place right now, how will the government and airport operators ensure that there's no misuse of this data?