Qantas flyers can use their smartphone as their passport
in a biometric trial launched this week.
Qantas and airport IT partner SITA say the trial is a first
of its kind. Participants store their passport details and photos in Qantas'
facial-recognition app. Then, their passport data is matched to their face via
cameras at the airport.
Qantas is conducting the trial at Brisbane's airport through
mid-December for flights to Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
The trial isn't an end-to-end solution. Passengers still
have to present passports for immigration and security. Still, it's an early
step toward extending air travel biometric capabilities beyond airports.
A number of airports around the world, including Atlanta,
have begun trialing end-to-end biometric journeys, in which flyers submit to
identity verification through facial recognition at the check-in kiosk, then go
hands-free all the way to the plane.
After check-in, passengers in the Atlanta trial won't have
to display a boarding pass or passport at bag check, security or the boarding
gate.
Ultimately, trials like Qantas' could lead to an even
broader biometric journey, in which an international flyer doesn't have to
produce a passport even once at the airport.