DIGI YATRA

What is ‘DIGI YATRA’ project?

• It is a project conceived to achieve contactless, paperless, seamless processing of passengers at Airports, based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). 
• It is built on 4 key pillars, like Connected Passengers, Connected Airports, Connected Flying and Connected Systems.  
• Under this, passengers will be automatically processed based on facial recognition systems at checkpoints like; Entry point check, Entry into Security Check, Aircraft Boarding.
• Additionally this will also facilitate self-Bag Drop and Check-in, using facial recognition to identify pax and data recall.  
• FRT provides a decentralised mobile wallet-based identity management platform which is cost effective and addresses privacy/data protection issues in implementation of Digi Yatra. 
• Digi Yatra Foundation (DYF) was set up as a joint venture (JV) company in  2019 under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013.
• DYF shareholders are Airports Authority of India or AAI (26% shares) and Bangalore International Airport Limited, Delhi International Airport Limited, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) , Mumbai International Airport Limited and Cochin International Airport Limited. These 5 shareholders equally hold the remaining 74% of the shares. 
• The Foundation was formed with the objective of creating the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem (DYCE). 
• Digi Yatra Foundation is a pan-India entity and the custodian of the Passenger ID validation process. 
• It also developed consensus amongst the Aviation Stakeholders in India. It also defines the criteria for compliance and guidelines for the local airport systems. 
• The JV conducts regular audits of the various compliances and guidelines (including guidelines on security, image quality, data privacy) defined by the Digi Yatra guidelines for the local Airport Biometric Boarding Systems (BBS).
• In the first phase, Digi Yatra is proposed to be rolled out at two Airports namely Varanasi and Bengaluru in August 2022 and at five Airports namely Pune, Vijayawada, Kolkata, Delhi and Hyderabad by March 2023. 
• AAI will identify their airports where Digi Yatra would be implemented in a phased manner.

How will it work?

• In the first step, people will need to download and install the Digi Yatra mobile application that is due to be launched.
• Once they sign up, they will have to first feed in their identity documents- for now, Aadhaar using the government’s Digi Locker document repository service.
• After they have validated their identity, they will be asked to take a selfie that will record their facial features. 
• After this process is complete, a Digi Yatra ID will be generated and passengers can then associate their flight bookings on the app.
• The app will share the duly encrypted passenger’s face and booking information to the airport on the day of travel.
• The passenger’s face will act as his ID proof and travel document and will be validated by the system without any physical document checks. 
• The airports will be equipped with biometric camera-based E-Gate at pre-security area and boarding.