New Delhi: Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has confirmed that the Digi Yatra is voluntary for air passengers and personnel at airports have been directed to collect data for the application only with the consent of passengers. His response came as TMC MP Saket Gokhale in a letter flagged complaints that biometric data for Digi Yatra were being gathered from passengers without their consent. 


Notably, Digi Yatra, which provides for contactless, seamless movement of passengers at various checkpoints at airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT), is currently available at a minimum of 13 airports for domestic passengers.


In response to the member, Scindia wrote a letter and clarified that the issue was examined and airport operators have been advised to sensitise Digi buddies on consent taking process and keeping the use of Digi Yatra completely voluntary. 


The minister, in a letter dated January 24, told Gokhale that Digi Yatra is a voluntary process for "seamless and hassle-free air travel which is purely voluntary".


To support passengers with the use of Digi Yatra, services of individuals called Digi buddies have been made available at the airports.


"Consent of passenger is pre-requisite for taking face biometric on kiosk based registration. Further, the data is automatically purged from the airport system after 24 hours of departure of the flight," the letter shared by Gokhale on social media platform X, informed. 



As per the information, the data shared by a passenger for Digi Yatra is stored in an encrypted format.  To avail the service, a passenger has to register his or her details on DigiYatra app using Aadhaar-based validation and a self-image capture. In the next step, the boarding pass has to be scanned and the credentials are shared with the airport. 


At the airport e-gate, the passenger has to first scan the bar-coded boarding pass and the facial recognition system installed at the e-gate will validate the passenger's identity and travel document, as per PTI.


Once this process is done, the passenger can enter the airport through the e-gate. The passenger will have to follow the normal procedure to clear the security and board the aircraft. Digi Yatra Foundation, a not-for-profit company, is the nodal body for Digi Yatra. 


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