VIDEO: Biometrics lead the way for fast, contactless identification in travel

Biometric systems have been gaining traction within the travel industry for many years.

Fingerprints and face and iris scans provide fast, non-transferable proof of a traveler’s identity and if that person is clear to move along in their journey – whether that means boarding a plane or checking into a hotel.

And now due to the COVID-19 crisis, interest is accelerating in biometric technologies since they can facilitate contactless, self-service processing of travelers - in some cases with more accuracy than human-managed checks.

SITA’s latest Air Transport IT Insights report , based on surveys of executives from 200 passenger airlines and 146 airports, finds contactless processing using biometric technology is a focus for investments.

Sixty-four percent of airports and 58% or airlines are aiming to have automatic biometric boarding gates by 2023.

One of the company’s providing face recognition technology is San Francisco-based Paravision . In February the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology ranked Paravision the number one vendor from the U.S., United Kingdom and European Union and the number six vendor globally for “identification” mode with visa and border images.

Speaking during PhocusWire Pulse: Decoding Travel Security, Paravision CEO Doug Aley discusses how biometrics can be used for identification and verification in travel, the need for standards, and other industries that are leading the way in implementation.

Watch the full interview with PhocusWire senior report Mitra Sorrells below.

* Other replays from the event are available here .