\u201cNow blockchain technology offers us the potential to provide a new way of using biometrics. It could enable biometrics to be used across borders, and at all airports, without the passenger\u2019s details being stored by the various authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
SITA\u2019s innovative research imagines passengers creating a verifiable \u2018token\u2019 on their mobile phone which contains biometric and other personal data. In this vision of future travel, no matter where in the world you go any authority can simply scan your face and scan your device to verify you are an authorized traveler. This can be done without all these agencies ever controlling or storing your biometric details. SITA Lab has worked with blockchain start-up ShoCard on an early demo of these concepts which is being showcased by the companies at the Air Transport IT Summit in Barcelona.<\/p>\n
Armin Ebrahimi, founder and CEO of ShoCard said: \u201cShoCard sees a digital revolution when it comes to people providing their verifiable identity information to third parties. Today we are showing how our identity platform, built using the blockchain, combined with SITA\u2019s unique air transport and border management solutions could improve traveler experience while ensuring security.\u201d
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\nPeters continued: \u201cBlockchain offers a revolutionary approach to computer applications. It fundamentally changes the way we design systems because we can now create decentralized, global, tamper-proof, distributed databases. It is very early days yet and the issues of scalability and adoption rates need to be examined. But what our SITA Lab team is looking at today is how we in the air travel industry \u2013 airlines, airports and government agencies – can take advantage of the new era where the underlying blockchain protocols provide trust so that individuals or authorities don\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
SITA\u2019s researchers are investigating a versatile and secure system to make the single travel token work globally, across all borders. Blockchain technology allows \u2018privacy by design\u2019 so that passenger data can be secure, encrypted, tamper-proof and unusable for any other purpose. At the same time, it eliminates the need for a single authority to own, process or store the data. The crypto-led computer science of blockchain provides a network of trust, where the source and history of the data is verifiable by everyone.<\/p>\n
Peters added: \u201cThis is a whole new way of working but ultimately \u2018The Blockchain\u2019 is simply a database where transactions are recorded and confirmed anonymously. Whether it is used for currency or travel it is simply a record of events that is shared between multiple parties but most importantly once information is entered, it cannot be changed, and privacy and security are by design.\u201d<\/p>\n
SITA\u2019s research into the Travel Identity of the Future is part of its ongoing investment in research for the benefit of the entire air transport community. Identity management to enable secure and rapid passenger flow through airports is one of the five community research programs that SITA has launched to address some of the industry\u2019s most pressing challenges. The others are new baggage tracking capabilities to meet IATA\u2019s Resolution 753; the facilitation of IATA\u2019s New Distribution Capability (NDC); an industry-wide disruption warning system; and enhancing cybersecurity across the industry. <\/p>\n
**The SITA Travel Identity of the Future concept developed with ShoCard and based on blockchain technology was demonstrated today at the Air Transport IT Summit in Barcelona.<\/p>\n