Biometric data must be shared and treated with the utmost security, so ecosystem stakeholders can provide a seamless travel experience and collaborate safely on a better traveller experience without the need to trust a third party.

KLM has successfully completed a biometrics pilot at Aruba airport, which allowed passengers to enroll on arrival and then travel seamlessly through the airport. The pilot proved facial recognition’s potential. This seamless flow concept requires a one-time enrollment at the airport, with biometrics gates allowing the passenger to consequently pass several touchpoints (such as check-in, baggage drop off, immigration and boarding) without showing a passport or boarding pass.

It was time to scale up this pilot to home enrollment, border crossing or even pre-clearance. The challenge for the teams was to co-create a working prototype for passengers to place biometric information on a smart device in such a way that this is GDPR-proof, interoperable and cannot be spoofed, possibly using a single token.