Kerb-to-gate biometric journey goes live at Kempegowda International Airport

The Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (BLR), has announced the successful ‘Early Go
Live’ of its ambitious Digi Yatra project – a fully biometric-based self-boarding solution for seamless flow from registration to boarding.

The airport has partnered with Vistara to launch the One-ID biometric platform technology, developed and installed by Vision-Box, which will enable passengers to breeze through BLR Airport.

After the completion of the final phase by early 2020, it is expected to be the largest deployment of an end-to-end paperless biometric programme in Asia with over 350 passenger touchpoints at BLR Airport Terminal 1.

The first milestone of the programme will enable passengers travelling on Vistara flight UK864 from Bengaluru to Mumbai to utilise this process without presenting travel documents at every touchpoint. This was made possible by the integration of Vistara’s Departure Control System with the technology, allowing effortless processing at the entry to the terminal, passenger security screening and the boarding gate. All Vistara flights are expected to be integrated into the biometric boarding process at BLR Airport by October 2019.

Over the next few months, this process is expected to be integrated with check-in and self-bag-drop to include other domestic and international airlines at BLR Airport. In the final stage, this technology will be integrated with the Digi Yatra Central Platform that is currently being architectured by the Central Government’s Digi Yatra Foundation.

Passengers can simply enrol their ID and biometric data, combined with their flight details, before entering the
Terminal. As they travel through the airport, passengers can put their travel documents away, as they will be
authenticated and verified at every touchpoint by state-of-the-art biometric technology. This process
offers the highest degree of safety and security while ensuring stringent standards of privacy. The biometric
data is used only for authentication and verification of passengers to assist the boarding process and not
for recognition. In addition, the passenger data is deleted within a few hours of flight completion.

Hari Marar, MD and CEO at Bangalore International Airport Ltd. (BIAL), said: “BIAL is extremely excited to rollout this Digi Yatra-based biometric technology that has the potential to make the passenger experience at BLR Airport seamless, secure and enjoyable. As the gateway to a new India, the BLR Airport would like to be a frontrunner amongst next-generation airport operations.

“There is an increasing need to offer seamless experiences and, as a pioneer in the airport technology domain in India, BIAL is committed to offering innovative ways to simplify the passenger journey, while maintaining the highest standards of safety, security and privacy. A select few passengers now have the opportunity to experience this sophisticated technology as part of this rollout.

“Once we trial the full end-to-end process successfully and integrate it into the Digi Yatra Platform being developed by the Digi Yatra Foundation, the technology and process will be used extensively for seamless flow in our upcoming Terminal 2 Project as well”, Marar said.

This project is another step in transforming passenger journeys – unleashing the power of the country’s first all-biometric flow operation, where your face is your boarding pass. Vistara’s Chief Information and Innovation Officer, Ravinder Pal Singh, said: “As an organisation with innovation at its core, we continue to keep a sharp focus on leveraging technology to make travelling increasingly seamless across customer touchpoints.

Collaborating with organisations across the aviation ecosystem using technology to enable this biometric
boarding technology is yet another step in this direction. We will continue to invest in cutting-edge technologies to
stay ahead of the curve, while we are laying our foundation for the future, keeping today’s need in consideration.”

Vision-Box award winning platform Orchestra is the enterprise solution behind the end-to-end seamless flow experience. It has been running seamless flow operations across the world, making the IATA One ID concept a reality. It combines next generation Identity Management as a Service features, certified common-use connectors, tier one biometric algorithms, artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies, the latest trends in user experience and human-to-machine interface.

The platform deployed at BLR Airport was conceived from inception according to privacy by design principles. Orchestra is yet the only identity management platform in the world that is certified in privacy by design, achieved in close partnership with the subject-matter experts’ team of the Centre of Excellence of the Ryerson University,
Toronto, Canada. The technology platform meets legal and regulatory requirements of data privacy and security and respects passenger privacy.

The Orchestra platform is equally 100 per cent compliant with European Union General Protection Data Regulation (GDPR) law, which adopts privacy by design principles. The GDPR primarily aims to give control back to citizens over their personal data. It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU.

“Vision-Box was selected by BLR Airport a few months ago to deliver a trusted biometric platform that enables a
digital friction-less passenger experience, resembling ‘a walk in the park’. Here we are together inaugurating
the first stage of the Digi Yatra Seamless Flow programme, which is a premiere in India and the largest initiative in
Asia. Most importantly, it will become a major growth handler for BLR, by enhancing capacity, efficiency and
security, while offering a modern experience for passengers”, commented Miguel Leitmann, Vision-Box CEO.

The full deployment of Digi Yatra Seamless Flow will be incremental, totalling more than 350 biometric touchpoints, all connected to the Orchestra platform. It will enable pro-active decision making in flow management. It is the smart glue between the traditional silos of the airport legacy systems where, for the first time in India, a biometric, common-use passenger-centric walk through becomes a reality.