BLR successfully launches beta version of DigiYatra App

Credit: BLR

As India celebrated its 75th Independence Day, the beta version of DigiYatra App was successfully rolled out at Bangalore Airport (BLR).

Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) has been pioneering the DigiYatra effort from its early concept days and pilot trials have been held since January 2017 at BLR. DigiYatra, the contactless, seamless processing of passengers at airports, based on the use of single token face biometrics for verification of passengers is a significant project led by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Government of India.

For the first phase rollout of the DigiYatra Central Ecosystem (DYCE), BLR is one of the two selected airports in India and passengers experienced this new-age, contactless and seamless process that commenced on 15 August 2022.

At BLR, the DigiYatra Biometric boarding system at e-gates is operational and being rolled out at full scale for all domestic airlines in a phased manner, covering checkpoints for domestic travel. Passengers experienced a seamless check-in, passed through security, and boarded their respective flights using their single token face biometric for validating their identity and their boarding pass.

Vistara Airlines and AirAsia are the two airlines that are currently integrated with DigiYatra. Passengers can easily enroll on the DigiYatra app from the comfort of their homes. The app is currently available on Google Playstore for Android users, and an iOS version will be made available in one month.

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“It is our constant endeavour at BIAL to offer innovative ways to simplify the passenger journey and make it as seamless as possible. The Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem implementation is one more step towards achieving this. We are glad to be part of the first phase rollout and value the trust reposed in us by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, DGCA, and the Government of India. As the new gateway to India, BLR Airport is keen to be at the forefront of change and innovation,” said Hari Marar, MD & CEO at BIAL.

The DYCE is being built on the standards defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which include Self Sovereign Identity (SSI) with Verifiable Credentials (VCs), Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs) with a trust layer of a Distributed Ledger and ensuring adoption of Privacy by Design and Privacy by Default as the fundamental tenets. This ensures privacy issues are taken care of and passengers will not have to worry about sharing their data as it is secure and will be deleted after 24 hours following their travel.

DYCE is the initiative of the Digi Yatra Foundation (DYF), which was set up as a joint venture company in 2019, and BIAL is one of the key shareholders. The DigiYatra Foundation will be a pan-India entity and the custodian of the Passenger ID validation process.