Privacy at risk?, ET TravelWorld News, ET TravelWorld

Picture this: You are in a long queue at the airport. While you are taking care of your luggage, you have to pull out your boarding pass, phone, or Aadhaar card at different checkpoints. And all this while, you have to keep your boarding pass safe and protect it from crumpling or losing it! How cumbersome and time-consuming the experience has always been for us, and we have been oblivious to such inconveniences all these years.

Wouldn’t it be convenient and comfortable if we could pass through the gates with our face as a single token? With technological advancements shaping the industry landscape, digital platforms are revolutionizing air travel with their contactless, efficient, and hassle-free airport entry, check-in and boarding experiences.

Facial recognition: A revolutionary development
Technological advancements have been a blessing, leading to smart travel solutions that are simplifying our travel experiences. Today, we can access boarding passes on our smartphones, check in through automated clearance gates and even validate our boarding passes electronically. Digital platforms are further transforming customer experiences significantly, ensuring seamless and health-risk-free check-in and boarding for travellers. How? They provide paperless experiences for passengers with face biometric-enabled digital processing. As a result, we need not wait for our turn for the formalities. We can simply pass through the airport process check-points/ e-gates using biometrics like face, eliminating the need for physical boarding passes. Such platforms streamline processes at various checkpoints in the airport, from the terminal entry gate to check-in, baggage drop, security check, and boarding gates, enhancing our overall experience. Are there data privacy and security concerns?
Recently, several issues have been raised regarding the capturing of photos of passengers not availing biometric-enabled services during the check-in and boarding process. Complaints are being registered from passengers across the country, including the key airports, about the same. Moreover, objections are often raised about their inadequate privacy safeguards, non-transparent data ecosystem and the fact that people are enrolled without their consent.

Uncovering the myths around data security and protection
Since the country does not currently have a comprehensive Data Privacy Act and clearly listed rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, it may seem that there are no concrete measures in case of data breaches on digital platforms. However, some of the applications offering seamless, paperless check-in experiences use the fundamental tenets of Privacy by Design. These platforms follow standards such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Self Sovereign Identity (SSI), Verifiable Credentials (VCs), Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and a layer of Trust viz. a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) (e. g. Hyperledger Aries Go/ ACAPy). They also use Secure Wallets and encryption using public-private key pairs to ensure data privacy and protection. In these ecosystems, the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is not stored in any central repository, which mitigates the risk of data breach, loss, leakage, misuse or pilferage. The credentials/ PII data are stored locally on the user’s own mobile phones.

These Decentralized ecosystems make concerted efforts to ensure data privacy and security. Several applications use secure methods such as hash values or numerical identifiers of the documents saved on the central ecosystem. They help identify the contents of the passengers’ data shared during app registration and ensure that there is no tampering of the data. They usually have a decentralized mobile-based ID storage system, which is specifically designed for travelers to store their IDs and travel credentials/ documents securely. This approach promises the safety of sensitive PII information provided during registration and to protect it from breaches. The Credentials’ data shared by the passenger to the Verifiers in the ecosystem is purged within 24 hours of flight departure.

The future roadmap
With the recent boom in AI and Gen AI, the industry will reimagine travel planning, booking, and experiences in the future. This will call for industry players to rethink their strategies and innovate in the way they interact with customers and develop products and services. With the integration of AI in the travel industry, the sector’s focus will be on efficient and personalized solutions tailored to cater to individual travelers’ needs. As a result, travel will be more convenient and customized, and check-in and boarding experiences, in particular, will undergo a major overhaul.

The author is the CEO of the Digi Yatra Foundation.

DISCLAIMER:The views expressed are solely of the author and ETTravelWorld.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETTravelWorld.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.