RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Ministry of Infrastructure wants to implement a new technology for the boarding process in Brazil’s airports. The project, called ‘Embarque Seguro’ (Safe Boarding), enables the use of facial recognition technology to conduct the procedure. According to the portfolio, the initiative will render the boarding process in airports more efficient and also provide greater security in air travel.
The use of facial recognition for boarding began to be tested last Thursday, October 8th, at the Florianópolis International Airport (SC). For now, only volunteers will be testing the new technology. The federal government intends to implement the project gradually in the main airports, once the solution is approved.
Unified national system
According to the Ministry’s note, although the facial recognition technology for passenger identification and automatic boarding at electronic gates (e-gates) is already available in the market, a unified national system, which would enable quickly and safely checking and validating passengers’ identity by cross-checking with existing government databases, is still lacking.
“With the development of the solution conducted by the Ministry of Infrastructure’s National Civil Aviation Secretariat (SAC), the security authorities will be able to rely on intelligence in the early risk assessment of travelers through the Brazilian Passenger Information System (SISBRAIP),” the portfolio reported.
The pilot project tests of Embarque Seguro in Florianópolis will be conducted with volunteer passengers from LATAM Airlines. The checking of the travelers’ identity will take place at the time of electronic check-in with the linking of a photo to the air ticket, which will allow passengers easy access to the boarding hall. Aircraft boarding will be performed using travelers’ biometrics, with no need to provide any document.
The technology was developed in partnership with Serpro, a federal government-owned information technology company, which developed an App that allows passengers to register their photo, thus linking it to an official identity card.
The biometric identification check is made through the Driver’s License (CNH) database of the National Traffic Department, which has some 56 million active records. Subsequently, other government databases will be used to expand the scope of data to be validated.
Source: Agência Brasil