The Paper Passport Is Dying

In a few years, wherever you live or travel, your face will be your new passport.

For centuries, people have used some form of passport when traveling from place to place. But the widespread standardization of passports as we know them today never really began World War IWhile passports were generally used as a security measure and to prevent spies entering a country. still, Some are considered Passports would be an “anachronism in the modern world”.

But the use of paper passports—that was a first Digitized as “e-passport” with NFC chip in 2006—One of its biggest transformations to date is slowly underway The travel industry, airports and governments are working to eliminate the need to show your passport when flying internationally. Finally, you won’t need to carry your passport.

Instead, facial recognition technology and smartphones are increasingly being used to check and confirm your identity against travel details before you fly. These systems, advocates claim, can reduce wait times and the “friction” you experience at the airport. But privacy experts warn that there is little transparency about the technologies being deployed and that their proliferation could lead to data breaches and greater levels of surveillance.

The push to eliminate paper passports is happening worldwide. Until now, airports in Finland, Canadanetherlands, United Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom, ItalyUnited States, IndiaAnd elsewhere passport-free travel or the various levels of technology needed to make it happen are being tested. Officials in Singapore in October announcement so that its residents can fly to and from the country without using their documentation and foreign visitors can “enjoy the convenience of passport-less clearance when leaving Singapore.” More than 1.5 million people used the system, officials claimed.

“It’s probably going to become mainstream in travel, as I understand it, in the near future,” said Athena Ioannou, a lecturer in business analytics at the University of Surrey in the UK who researched the impact of privacy on various types of travel. Ioannou says the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated contact-free travel and A lot of effort is driven by trying to move passengers through the airport quickly.

Although trials around the world are at different stages and use different technological infrastructures, they work in broadly the same way: information historically stored in your passport’s NFC chip, including facial data, is instead stored digitally and linked to your phone. The EU is planning to build one The official travel app So when you’re at the airport, the phone can be shown and a face recognition camera will try to match you to the passport photo.