Facial recognition at airports from 2022

Four centres to get facility in March.

Arriving passengers leave a terminal at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai. File

After a delay of three years, come March 2022, passengers will be able to use a face scan as their boarding pass at four airports in the country.

Airports at Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata and Vijaywada will be the first to roll-out the facial recognition technology-based biometric boarding system, and the service will go live from March 2022, Minister of State for Civil Aviation V.K. Singh told the Lok Sabha in response to a question.

Thereafter, the technology will be scaled up in a phased manner across various airports in the country.

The Airports Authority of India has engaged NEC Corporation Private Limited for implementing the technology as part of the DigiYatra policy, which seeks to promote paperless air travel and a seamless journey from entering an airport till boarding a plane. The policy was unveiled in October 2018, and as per the original plan, the roll-out of the facial recognition technology was scheduled for April 2019.