DigiYatra and FRT registration process are once again in question. File Photo | Photo credit: S_SIVA SARAVANAN
A Vistara passenger on Friday unknowingly and reluctantly came across the DigiYatra registration process at the boarding gate of the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. When he asked about it in X, the airline confirmed that the cameras placed at the boarding gates are for the DigiYatra process and are applicable to all customers.
DigitYatra is a paperless facial recognition technology (FRT) used to verify flyers (even foreigners) at Indian airports, designed to facilitate hassle-free terminal access and boarding.
Managed by DigiYatra Foundation, it is still not mandatory, but flyers often cheated on it unknowingly. Currently, DigiYatra is available at 14 Indian airports.
The Vistara leaflet further asked whether photos were taken of all passengers, regardless of whether they had chosen Digiyatra. To which the airline replied: “After the airport team has checked, we would like to confirm that all customers have had their photos taken.”
As per the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s guidelines for Digi Yatra, at the time of consent collection, the Digi Yatra ecosystem will closely inform the user and obtain consent to share facial biometric data for airport checkpoints. This will be completely voluntary, and users will also have the option to opt out and delete their profile at any time.
In March 2024, DigiYatra updated its app and asked users to remove the senior one and install the novel version. However, since its inception in December 2022, the app has remained anonymous as to how, where and who controls data and its privacy.
Several digital rights groups, such as the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), have raised concerns about the misuse of DigiYatra and FRT as they directly impact the right to privacy.
IFF wrote: “Indian public authorities and police have used (and abused) facial recognition systems, threatening the human rights and data privacy of millions of Indian citizens, without greater accountability.”
It documents that in May 2024, the Tamil Nadu Police’s FRT portal suffered a massive data breach, compromising 8,00,000 rows of data. These included personal details of police officers and FRT reports on thousands of defendants. IFF advocates a complete ban on the apply of FRT by police forces.
Similarly, in June, Telangana Police’s HawkEye app was hacked and leaked data online.
In March 2024, IFF noted that the Indian Railways had floated a tender for the installation of FRT-enabled CCTV cameras in rail coaches to be used with face-matching servers to monitor and identify passengers and “reduce crime”.
FRT was also used to intimidate farmers in Haryana, where police ordered the cancellation of passports and visas of farmers identified using drones and CCTV cameras “causing disruption” during farmer protests.
On the contrary, Delhi Police claims FRT accuracy is 2%, points out IFF.
The DigiYatra app can be downloaded from Google Play and App Store. Registration is done using your mobile number, OTP and then Aadhar number or you can apply Digi Locker.
