Saturday, 19 April 2025

United Nations Pushes Agenda To Replace Airline Boarding Passes With Facial Recognition Technology

100 Percent Fed Up
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The agenda to enforce biometrics for air travel is gaining steam as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates global airline policy, wants to enforce digital surveillance on passengers.

The agency wants to introduce a “digital travel credential” that would enable facial recognition technology to replace your boarding pass.

In other words, flying would require giving up your biometric data.

WATCH:

From The Guardian:

This would allow passengers to store passport information on their devices to be used for travel. The changes could come into effect within three years, according to the Times.

Currently, those flying must check in, which can be done online or at the airport upon arrival. They are then issued with a boarding pass with a barcode. This is scanned by a passenger at various points throughout the airport, including at the gate before boarding.

The changes would make boarding passes and the need to check in for flights obsolete. Instead, flyers will download a “journey pass” to their phone when they book a flight. The pass will be automatically updated if any changes are made to the booking.

Passengers will also be able to upload their passports to their phone and travel through airports using their face for verification. Instead of manually checking in, which would let airlines know who intends to board their flights, airlines will instead be alerted when passengers arrive at the airport and their face is scanned.

Valérie Viale, the director of product management at Amadeus, a travel technology company, told the Times that the changes were “the biggest in 50 years”. She said: “The last upgrade of great scale was the adoption of e-ticketing in the early 2000s. The industry has now decided it’s time to upgrade to modern systems that are more like what Amazon would use.”

Per Independent:

The technology firm Amadeus and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) are clearly of the same view. The hope is that you will receive your so-called “journey pass” the moment you book. The pass will be stored on your phone and can be updated automatically without you needing to do anything if the schedule or your or the airline’s plans change. For example, in the event of a repeat of the Heathrow fiasco on 21 March, when more than a quarter-million passengers had their flights cancelled after a power failure, your journey pass will be updated with a replacement flight.

The actual pass should not be needed for the journey through the airport. A massive database has been expecting you and will clock you as soon as you walk in …

Yes. The airport and airline tech should converge with your passport, which will, in time, be a digital document. You will simply smile your way through the barriers: into security, through duty-free and at the departure gate. Actually, don’t smile: a frown will get you further faster, at least in an airport, if not in life.

Decius Valmorbida, president of travel for Amadeus, says the airport experience will feel far easier: “Biometric touch points essentially will grant you access to where you need to go next. You don’t even need to have gates – you could have a free flow. As you walk through the hallways with cameras, they are scanning your face, and that is providing the information if you are allowed to be going to that direction.”

Digitisation is already happening. Singapore airport has kiosks to clear travellers through passport control in seconds, and many other airports – including Sydney and Melbourne – are employing similar technology. Recently, I cleared Australian immigration at Melbourne, from aircraft door to taxi, in nine minutes flat. Facial recognition is now so good that US Customs and Border Protection has largely given up fingerprinting arriving passengers – and even checking their physical passports.

Digital, technocratic surveillance masquerading as ‘convenience’ and ‘safety.’


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