‘DIGI YATRA’ for contactless processing to be rolled out at Varanasi, B’luru airports

Ever wondered if travelling at airports could become paperless and contactless just like payments and shopping these days? Civil Aviation Ministry is all set to roll out the DIGI YATRA project, aimed at achieving “contactless, seamless processing of passengers,” at two airports — Varanasi and Bengaluru -- in August this year as part of its first phase.  

In its second phase, the DIGI YATRA project will be rolled out at five airports – Pune, Vijayawada, Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad — by March 2023. The decision was taken at a Consultative Committee meeting of the Ministry of Civil Aviation chaired by Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, according to a ministry release.  

The contactless and seamless processing of passengers will be achieved via the facial recognition technology (FRT). The project will use facial features to establish the identity of the traveller, which will be linked to the boarding pass. During the course of the Consultative Committee meeting, Scindia said privacy issues will be taken care of in the system.  

The system, also known as Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem (DYCE), also provides for decentralised mobile wallet-based identity management platform which is cost effective and addresses privacy/data protection issues in implementation of Digi Yatra. The DYCE system was formed by the Digi Yatra Foundation (DYF), set up as a JV company in 2019.  

DYF’s shareholders are Airports Authority of India (AAI) and airports including BIAL, DIAL, GHIAL, MIAL and CIAL. While AAI holds 26 per cent share in the entity, the five airports hold 74 per cent in DYF. The foundation is touted to be a countrywide entity and the custodian of the Passenger ID validation process.  

Besides this, DYF will develop consensus amongst the Aviation Stakeholders in India, define criteria for compliance and guidelines for local airport systems, conduct regular audits of the various compliances and guidelines, including guidelines on security, image quality and data privacy.