Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has begun a facial recognition pilot project for boarding passengers.
The program—a partnership of the airport, the Dutch government, Cathay Pacific Airways, KLM and Vision-Box, the company responsible for the Seamless Flow facial recognition system—aims to eventually make it unnecessary for passengers to display documents.
Under the pilot project, Cathay Pacific passengers arriving at Schiphol for outbound flights are invited, after checking in, to take part in the trial. Participants are escorted to a registration kiosk where their passports and the boarding passes are scanned while a facial image is captured, and a biometric token is generated for each traveler.
The token allows a passenger to proceed through a boarding gate without having to show any documents. At the departure gate, a biometric-enabled e-gate scans a passenger’s face and the image is compared with the scan made during the registration process. When the face is identified, the gate opens and the passenger is boarded.
At present, Schiphol safety and security director Wilma van Dijk said, “You have to show your passport, your boarding card or both at various checkpoints at the airport—for example, when dropping your luggage, at the entrance to the security check, when passing [immigration] and when you board. In the future you can pass these control points more smoothly because you are recognized by your face. You can leave your passport and boarding pass in the bag.”
“For passengers, the journey from arrival at the airport to boarding becomes easier and more efficient,” he added.
“The whole idea of Seamless Flow is to modernize the airport landscape to improve convenience, simplify processes, offer modern interactions and deliver effective value to passengers,” Vision-Box CEO Miguel Leitmann said. The system “will absolutely reshape how we travel,” he added.
In the initial stage of the trial, facial, passport and boarding pass scanning will take place during registration and boarding. Passport control will be added to the process later.