Latest news with #DigiYatraFoundation
Mint
4 days ago
- Business
- Mint
The man who wants your face to be the boarding pass—everywhere
Bengaluru: On a foggy January morning in 2017, 17 passengers voluntarily stepped into an experimental lane at Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport to test a new way of boarding flights: no identity (ID) card, no ticket, no boarding pass. A simple scanner cross-verified the passengers' fingerprints with India's unique identity system, Aadhaar, and matched them against the flight manifest. The pilot project, done in partnership with Jet Airways, which was still operational back then, went smoothly. But it was much harder to pull off, than it seemed. 'Back then, everything was manual," recalls Suresh Khadakbhavi, now chief executive officer (CEO) of the Digi Yatra Foundation. 'We realized that identity and travel document validations were done by different systems, and we could unify them digitally." Working with a few manufacturers, his team prototyped a system that validated Aadhaar biometrics alongside the travel ticket. Khadakbhavi remembers walking with the passengers from the entry gate all the way to the boarding gate, capturing their reactions on video. One lady asked him: 'Why just one airline, one lane? Why not the whole airport?" 'That's when it hit us—this had national potential," he says. It would be another five years before India formally brought the idea to life with DigiYatra, a system that promises seamless check-in to boarding experience for flyers. Today, it has more than 15 million users and has enabled over 60 million verified journeys. On average, 125,000 passengers use it every day, accounting for 30–35% of domestic flyers. The service is currently live at 24 airports. Another 17 are in the pipeline. The architect The project began as a whiteboard exercise in Bengaluru sometime in 2015. Khadakbhavi was then a deputy general manager at the Bengaluru International Airport Ltd's information technology department. He joined an internal workshop about the airport's preparedness to design Terminal 2. 'All participants were asked to imagine the ideal passenger experience," he recalls. Khadakbhavi envisioned a traveller gliding through check-in, security, and boarding without ever showing a document—face as the only credential. Everything else happens digitally, in the background. He titled his proposal: 'My face is my boarding pass'. Dozens of submissions were pinned on a wall and put to a vote. 'Mine got just seven votes," he laughs. 'But I wasn't discouraged." He started reaching out to biometric vendors to build an end-to-end system. It wasn't easy. Biometrics in airports were still new. The system had to go beyond identity and validate travel documents, coordinate with airlines and security, and meet compliance at every step. Even in 2017, 'we were just volunteers", recalls Khadakbhavi. Hence, to make the project work across the country, and introduce facial recognition, he would need the cooperation of other stakeholders, including the ministry of civil aviation, the Central Industrial Security Force, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), and intelligence agencies. Encouraged by the initial passenger feedback, the team reached out to the civil aviation ministry. Then minister of state, Jayant Sinha, was enthusiastic. 'He understood immediately that this could make airport experiences less painful," recalls Khadakbhavi. A series of live demos convinced the ministry to back the idea formally. By August 2018, the DigiYatra policy was officially released. While airports had already been experimenting with pilot trials, this was the first attempt at a formal framework. The ministry formed a digital cell to guide the process, headed by then secretary R.N. Choubey. Chief executives of public-private partnership airports—Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Cochin, and Mumbai—joined the steering committee. Technical experts from these airports, including Khadakbhavi himself, formed the working committee. To validate the policy design, they looped in Aadhaar architects Nandan Nilekani and Pramod Varma. Nilekani suggested a not-for-profit structure for the organization. That way, the focus remains on the mission, not monetization. By February 2019, the Digi Yatra Foundation was officially registered as a Section 8 not-for-profit. The Airports Authority of India, and the international airports from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Cochin, are its shareholders. For now, the foundation's funding comes from a simple model: each subscribing airport pays a fee based on passenger volumes. Costs are distributed proportionally. Covid pause Just when things were running smoothly, the covid-19 pandemic hit and everything froze. 'Travel collapsed. Airports—our shareholders—were focused on surviving. But ironically, the pandemic made our case stronger. DigiYatra is contactless by default. No touching devices, no exchanging documents," says Khadakbhavi. During this period, he joined the International Air Transport Association (IATA) One ID advisory group, where global discussions were underway to build seamless, secure passenger experiences. 'That's when self-sovereign identity (SSI) came into the picture," he says. Unlike centralized systems, where data is stored on servers, SSI allows identity credentials to be stored directly on users' phones, making it ideal for decentralized applications such as DigiYatra. 'When we asked UIDAI if we could ping Aadhaar every time a passenger boarded, they said no—it would overload their systems and raise privacy risks," recalls Khadakbhavi. 'So we proposed a one-time Aadhaar validation to create a reusable credential stored on the passenger's phone. They agreed." To build this, the foundation ran a startup challenge in partnership with NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission. Over 400 startups expressed interest. Two were selected to begin the implementation. One of them stepped back, citing limited blockchain expertise. The other, DataEvolve, built the platform that would become DigiYatra's core. A soft launch took place on 15 August 2022. By 1 December, DigiYatra formally went live at three airports: Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi. In the months following the launch, adoption surged. 'We soon realized we needed a proper organization, not just volunteers," Khadakbhavi explains. The board began searching for a full-time leader. 'I threw my hat in the ring," he says. On 1 April, 2023, he was officially appointed CEO. 'Don't KYC' Soon, DigiYatra ran into controversies. Concerns were raised over the aggressive and opaque manner in which the system was being pushed at airports, especially since India's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, is yet to be enforced. The draft rules were notified this January. That the Digi Yatra Foundation is not governed by the country's Right to Information (RTI) Act has only increased the unease. The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital rights advocacy organization, acknowledges that DigiYatra is 'an opt-in and completely voluntary service at Indian airports". Nonetheless, it cautions that digital processing using facial recognition technology and personal credentials to authenticate users instead of traditional boarding passes is being done 'with inadequate privacy safeguards, in a non-transparent data ecosystem, and sometimes without your consent, making it a challenge for you to navigate airports without enrolling in the service". IFF has written multiple letters to Indian authorities, including the civil aviation ministry, NITI Aayog, Digi Yatra Foundation, and the Airports Authority of India, underscoring that the foundation has a 26% shareholding from the union government, but is not covered under the RTI Act and does not disclose its cyber security audits. Last July, the India unit of the Software Freedom Law Centre, a legal services organization, too, highlighted reports of passengers 'either being forced into or unknowingly enrolled in DigiYatra". Vibhav Mithal, an associate partner at law firm Anand and Anand, notes that while Digi Yatra has stated repeatedly that it is voluntary in nature, consent of the end-user to use the system becomes critical, and travellers must know it's a choice. 'Being a private entity, the DPDP law, once in force, would apply. Further, as it is an AI (artificial intelligence) facial recognition technology, risk mitigation beyond aspects of data protection are equally relevant—such as mitigating the risk of bias," says Mithal. Khadakbhavi acknowledges that clearing concerns around privacy and introducing more languages (other than English) will help unlock even wider adoption. 'It's a fair concern. Unless we communicate clearly and creatively, the doubt will linger," he admits.'We don't know your age, gender, airline, or how often you fly," Khadakbhavi stresses. 'And that's by design." This privacy-first approach powers DigiYatra's 'Don't Know Your Customer" campaign—a witty reversal of traditional KYC. The Foundation has also begun conducting regular audits across its Amazon Web Services (AWS)-based cloud, app, and airport verifiers. 'All data shared with airports is purged within 24 hours of departure. But we're going further—we'll soon start notifying users when their data is purged." What users think Kashyap Kompella, an AI analyst and founder of tech consultancy RPA2AI, is a frequent flier. It typically takes him an hour to reach Bengaluru airport but last week, it took him much longer because of traffic. 'I would have missed my flight had it not been for the shorter DigiYatra queue," he says with a sense of relief. Kompella initially did not use DigiYatra because he wanted to minimize his digital footprint. 'I deleted the app after reports of data breach (in 2023). I installed it again because the non-DigiYatra security lanes take longer," he says. Kompella does worry about privacy, but like everyone else, he's trading privacy for a bit of convenience, he adds. DigiYatra has also become an integral part of the flying routine of Moksh Juneja, founder and CEO of Mumbai-based digital agency Avignyata Inc. Juneja is a frequent business traveler, mostly to Delhi and Bengaluru. 'It saves time and adds predictability to the airport experience," he says. As a family traveller, though, Juneja believes DigiYatra has a gap. 'Since our kids are under 10, we've consciously given them basic feature phones, which means they can't access the app. This forces us to use the regular lines while travelling as a family, which slows things down," he adds. Not just in English 'We're a lean team—fewer than 20 people, including outsourced app and backend developers. But we're nimble," says Khadakbhavi. He adds that airports have played a crucial role in adoption. Many deployed 'DigiBuddies"—contract staff who walk around terminal areas, helping passengers enroll. 'They explain how this process saves time. And it works," he points out. The next frontier, like the CEO mentioned earlier, is expanding the languages DigiYatra supports. Today, six Indian languages are already tested, with plans to roll out 22. Language translations are being done in partnership with AI4Bharat's Bhashini system. 'Eventually, we want to support global languages, too," he says. Easy border control? As the system matures, DigiYatra is increasingly fielding inquiries from foreign governments. 'They've experienced it in India and want us to build similar systems," says Khadakbhavi. The foundation now aims to make Digi Yatra a digital public infrastructure asset, like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). 'It will take six to nine months, but we're on track." How does Digi Yatra compare with global systems such as Singapore's automated gates or Clear, a biometric identity platform, in the US? 'They're centralized. The data goes into sovereign databases," says Khadakbhavi. 'We're different. Your credentials stay on your phone." But could DigiYatra eventually enable international travel? Absolutely, he says. With India now issuing International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)-compliant e-passports, passengers can scan and create a digital credential with near-field communication, a short-range wireless technology that allows data exchange between devices. 'You could share this (the digital credential) with both your departure and destination airports. So, if you fly from Bengaluru to Paris, your credentials could help you breeze through border control at both ends," says Khadakbhavi. The CEO's next vision? One day, this system could extend beyond aviation—into hotel check-ins, IT parks, even online exams. He hopes that what started with 'My face is my boarding pass', will eventually become, 'My face is my identity—everywhere."
Mint
30-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Digi Yatra to expand to 41 airports by 2025 end: CEO Khadakbhavi
New Delhi: Digi Yatra, the app that allows domestic passengers fast airport entry and boarding, is looking to expand to over 41 airports by the end of 2025. Currently, Digi Yatra can be used at 24 airports, including metro airports like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. "We are awaiting launch at four more airports, and in the next three to six months, Digi Yatra will go live at 13 more airports. Upcoming new airports like Navi Mumbai International Airport and Noida International Airport will go live with Digi Yatra directly," said Suresh Khadakbhavi, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Digi Yatra Foundation, in an interview. Launched in December 2022, Digi Yatra has a user base of over 14 million now. The services are currently live at eight private and 16 Airports Authority of India-operated airports. Also read | DGCA's surveillance detects several safety flaws at airports, aircraft The Digi Yatra CEO said that there are 25,000-30,000 new enrolments every day. 'We've enabled over 60 million journeys so far and by the end of 2025, the use base will be around 20 million. The adoption rate averages between 30% and 35% across Indian airports," said Khadakbhavi. In the coming few months, Digi Yatra services are expected to be expanded for foreign nationals as well. This expansion will be based on the back of a roll-out of e-passport services. On 24 June, the government announced the roll-out of e-passport services for Indian nationals. The e-passports are enabled with a chip with biometric details. Digi Yatra is currently being tested with e-passport enrolment, which will also enable foreign nationals to use the services. Currently, only Indian nationals can enroll for the services through their Aadhaar card, driving license or voter ID card. 'For example, a foreign citizen working out of India can enroll on Digi Yatra by using their e-passport credentials. Just like Indian nationals, foreign nationals will be able to use the services for domestic flights," said Khadakbhavi. Also read | Reliance Aerostructure to manufacture Dassault's Falcon 2000 business jets in India The Digi Yatra Foundation is in talks with the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) to sign an agreement for the same. After the agreement, there will be access to verify data with ICAO's Public Key Directory (PKD), which would enable a secure exchange of cryptographic keys related to e-passports. Khadakbhavi is looking at a timeline of three months to implement the rollout. While Digi Yatra will be expanded for foreign nationals taking domestic flights, enabling this for international flights looks difficult for the moment, Khadakbhavi said. With the involvement of multiple stakeholders like the ministry of external affairs, the Bureau of Immigration and the ministry of home affairs, enabling such services is a tricky thing, as per the Digi Yatra CEO. 'When we talk about the international process, it means automated border control, which is a sensitive area. We would not want to fail in this and a good process needs to be defined," he said. He also said that with European Union building EU Digital Identity Wallet, there could be interoperability in the future. Also read | Air India eyes profitability with fleet overhaul and customer satisfaction boost There have been concerns around data privacy in the past including sharing and usage of data. However, the Digi Yatra Foundation has maintained its stance that the data is stored in a user's phone and the data shared with the airport is purged in 24 hours. 'We are not storing any personal data on any central location; the entire data is decentralized. If one wants to hack the database, they will have to hack all the phones of all users," added Khadakbhavi.
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Business Standard
29-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
80% domestic passengers expected to use Digi Yatra app by 2028: CEO
The Digi Yatra Foundation expects nearly 80 per cent of domestic air travellers in India to use its facial recognition-based airport check-in app by 2028, up from the current daily usage of 30–35 per cent, chief executive officer, Suresh Khadakbhavi, told Business Standard. 'Maybe, language is a barrier and that will be addressed as we make our app compatible with various languages,' he said. Currently, the app is available only in English. However, five additional languages — Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and Kannada — will be introduced by July. 'Right now, we are testing them. By July, users can choose either of the six languages,' Khadakbhavi said. Over time, the app aims to support all 22 constitutionally recognised Indian languages. The app, which allows passengers to verify their identity using facial recognition instead of physical documents, currently accepts only Aadhaar for enrolment. That is set to change. 'You can't enrol on Digi Yatra using your driving licence right now. We are conducting user acceptance tests (UAT) for it. We are adding that. In a month, you will be able to enrol not just on the basis of an Aadhaar card, but also on your driving licence,' he elaborated. Digi Yatra is currently operational at 24 airports, with plans to expand to 41 airports by March 2026, he said. 'Currently, 30–35 per cent of all domestic passengers per day are using the Digi Yatra app. We aim to take this number to 70–80 per cent by 2028,' he said. The foundation is also planning a pilot project for international use of the app. 'We were targeting the annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association, which took place between June 1 and June 3 in Delhi. We wanted to do at least one PoC (proof of concept) by that time. However, we were not able to do it,' Khadakbhavi said. The pilot would involve e-passport-based credential verification for foreign expatriates who travel frequently within India. 'The pilot project will be for expats who work out of India, and travel within India. They can verify themselves using e-passports and then use Digi Yatra for domestic travel,' he said. If successful, it could pave the way for the use of Digi Yatra on international flights as well. 'Discussions are underway with multiple countries,' he added. 'We are holding primary discussions in countries of various regions — the West Asia is one, Europe and North America are others. As yet, nothing has been put on paper... If we find a country ready then this pilot study can happen in the next six months,' he said. Looking beyond airports, the foundation is also eyeing an integration of Digi Yatra with hotel check-in processes. 'I am expecting that in the next year, we could have them on our app. I am expecting, but it may or may not,' he said. However, this would require policy-level interventions. 'Today, a hotel can accept four or five IDs including Aadhaar card and PAN card as valid proofs. We want Digi Yatra to be added to that list. Once that happens at the policy level, we are sorted,' Khadakbhavi said. 'If Digi Yatra can be used for such a sensitive thing as air travel where the perception of threat is higher, then why can't it be used at any place, like checking into a hotel, where your identity needs to be validated?' he asked. 'Verifying your credentials through our app will be easier, less time-consuming, and more privacy-preserving than giving your ID card to the reception staff, who then take a photo or print a copy of that,' he said.
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Business Standard
29-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Digi Yatra eyes 80% daily users by 2028, plans hotel integration pilot
The app will support more Indian languages, enable driving licence onboarding, and run pilots for international and hotel check-ins over the next few months Deepak Patel Listen to This Article The Digi Yatra Foundation expects nearly 80 per cent of domestic air travellers in India to use its facial recognition-based airport check-in app by 2028, up from the current daily usage of 30–35 per cent, its chief executive officer, Suresh Khadakbhavi, told Business Standard in an interview. 'Maybe, language is a barrier and that will be addressed as we make our app compatible with various languages,' he added. Presently, the app is available only in English. However, five additional languages — Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and Kannada — will be introduced by July. 'Right now, we are testing them. By
Business Standard
09-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Digi Yatra to expand to 15 more airports in India, says Siddharth Verma
Digi Yatra, an initiative co-ordinated by the civil aviation ministry to ensure seamless travel for passengers from the airport gates to boarding a flight, will be available in 15 more airports this fiscal, Siddharth Verma, head of IT operations at Digi Yatra Foundation, said. "All the metros are done and all the big airports are done. So now we are left with the smaller airports where the ministry evaluates if there is a need at all or not. Because at times you don't need such solutions if the volume is very low, or there is just one gate," he told Business Standard. Five of the new airports include Mangalore, Trivandrum, Srinagar, Chandigarh, and Nagpur. The rest are managed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), whose infrastructure is ready but where technology integration is still under way. India has 24 of its major airports covered under Digi Yatra, covering nearly 90 per cent of outbound passenger traffic, Verma added. The upcoming airports in Navi Mumbai and Noida are not part of the 15, he clarified. Digi Yatra's technology, launched in 2022, has revolutionised travel across Indian airports through the implementation of self-sovereign identity or decentralised ID, which allows users to control their online information. Authentication is done through two documents: the Aadhaar and the boarding pass. To date, the app has been downloaded 14 million times and has facilitated more than 56 million journeys across Indian airports. 'It should be like a walk in the park, a kind of experience where nobody should ask for your documents. You just show your face and keep walking through the touchpoints seamlessly and don't have to exchange your documents with anyone.' The Digi Yatra app is linked with the UIDAI ecosystem. When a passenger downloads the app, fills in the required details — including the Aadhaar number — and receives an OTP to authenticate, UIDAI sends the Aadhaar details to the phone. 'Then your proof of presence is established by taking your selfie and matching it with the image on your Aadhaar. These two must match. We then create a verified credential (VC), which is like a digital photocopy with a digital stamp called proof value. This proof value, along with the ID document, is stored in the Digi Yatra wallet on the user's phone until it is deleted by the user.' Even with Aadhaar, Digi Yatra follows what Verma terms data minimisation. Only the passenger's name, gender, date of birth, and masked Aadhaar number are taken. 'Your address is not pulled because it is not required for this use case. Privacy by design means data minimisation must be embedded at the core.' The second step involves uploading the boarding pass. The technology pulls data from the QR code, including date of travel, name, seat number, PNR, origin, destination, and sequence number. 'When you link your boarding pass, we match the name linked earlier from your Aadhaar with the name on the boarding pass. If these match, along with the real-time facial image clicked at the airport, the gate opens. All this happens automatically. There is no human intervention,' Verma explains. Asked about data security concerns, he said data shared with the origin airport is deleted from Digi Yatra's biometric gallery within 24 hours of flight departure. 'The data becomes instantly obsolete. That's how the architecture is designed. Airports also cannot retain the data as per policy.' Digi Yatra also conducts annual audits at the enabled airports to ensure compliance with these policy guidelines and verify that systemic scripts are in place. 'Some airports delete it within four hours, some within five. Others delete it as per the policy required by the CISF and other security agencies.'
