Digi Yatra dreams of expansion

India’s face biometrics-based air travel app Digi Yatra has covered 24 of the country’s major airports and is expanding to 15 smaller ones during the current financial year.

By 2028, nearly 80 percent of domestic air travelers in India are expected to use the platform, compared to today’s 30 to 35 percent, according to Suresh Khadakbhavi, CEO of the Digi Yatra Foundation. The organization is currently working on expanding the number of languages available in the app, he said in an interview with the Business Standard published Monday.

The industry-led initiative, developed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) and the Digi Yatra Foundation, wants to expand beyond airports. In April, Khadakbhavi shared plans to introduce its automated ID check capabilities into the travel industry and public spaces.

The organization is integrating verified credentials from passports and driving licenses and exploring partnerships with airlines and online travel agencies to streamline boarding pass sharing directly from their apps.

“We have a vision for Digi Yatra to be known as the ‘Travel stack of India’, providing a secure and private way to validate your identity for the purpose of physical or digital access or access to any services,” he says.

Another plan is to enable international travel with Digi Yatra. The company has been working with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on aligning with IATA’s One ID initiative for global interoperability as well as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Indian government.

How does Digi Yatra technology work

Since its launch in 2022, the Digi Yatra app has been downloaded 14 million times and facilitated more than 56 million journeys across airports in India.

The platform is linked to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). A passenger can type in their data in the app, including the Aadhaar number, receive an OTP to authenticate, and the UIDAI sends the Aadhaar details on the phone, according to Siddharth Sharma, head of IT operations of Digi Yatra Foundation.

“Then your proof of presence is established by taking your selfie and matching the selfie with the image that is there in the Aadhaar,”  Sharma explained earlier this month for The Business Standard.

After a match is confirmed, the app creates a verified credential, which is sent to the user’s phone and stored in the Digi Yatra wallet.

During the second step, the passenger uploads their boarding pass data through a QR code. The name on the boarding pass is matched to the name linked to the Aadhaar. After that, the passenger goes through the facial recognition gate. Digi Yatra’s biometric technology partner is SITA.

“All this is happening automatically. There is no human intervention,” he says

Sharma laid out a more detailed breakdown of the technology behind Digi Yatra and the ways it ensures privacy in a previous LinkedIn post.

The app uses self-sovereign identity, allowing users to control their online information. The app follows data minimization rules, meaning that only minimal and necessary data is fetched from UIDAI. Multiple audits have confirmed no data storage in the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem, according to Sharma.

No user information, including individual users’ verifiable credential hash, is pushed to the blockchain. The platform relies on the Hyperledger Aries framework and respective RFCs for the communication and data exchange layer (DID Communication) between the participants such as Issuer (Digi Yatra), Holder (Passenger) and Verifier (Airport).

Article Topics

airport biometrics  |  biometrics  |  Digi Yatra  |  digital identity  |  digital travel  |  face biometrics  |  identity verification  |  India  |  SITA  |  travel and tourism