No risk of data theft as flyers’ data will not be stored, says Digi Yatra Foundation

Digi Yatra Foundation is a joint-venture between Airport Authority of India (AAI) and other private airports and is implementing the Digi Yatra project which uses biometric and facial recognition technology at checkpoints.

The project piloted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation has been beta launched at Delhi and Bengaluru Airport is expected to fast-track the check-in process at airports, but has raised fear of misuse of passenger data in the absence of a Data Protection Law in India.

“In the revised Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem (DYCE), the processes are fully automatic and there is no human intervention at any stage, right from enrolment to travel. A passenger’s data or personal details are not saved on any central storage or server, so they are safe. The data is encrypted and stored in the passenger’s own smartphone in the wallet of Digi Yatra App and used only if they give their consent,” said a Digi Yatra Foundation spokesperson.

The spokesperson added that data is purged automatically from the system on the same day within a few hours post departure.

Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital rights advocacy group, has said that privacy risks are likely to occur due to features such as facial recognition for check-ins and data recall. It also mentioned that this might lead to passengers’ data being commercialised by the government.

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The Digi Yatra Foundation said that data is shared only when explicit consent is given by the passenger to use the facility. “Passengers’ digitally verifiable credentials are shared from 24 hours to 2 hours before the scheduled time of departure with the relevant verifiers like the CISF deployed at the airports only when a passenger gives consent on the app when he wants to travel,” the spokesperson added.