Berlin-Brandenburg Airport has announced a new digital biometric facial recognition service for passengers, which will replace boarding passes and simplify the procedure for passing control. The project has been launched in test mode for Lufthansa customers with priority boarding privileges.
Berlin-Brandenburg Airport said that the use of a biometric facial recognition system would allow travelers to complete certain procedures at the airport without having to present any documentation. Called BER Traveler, the service is being tested in collaboration with the Lufthansa Group and the makers of FastID technology.
Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings customers with Senator and HON Circle status will already have access to the new service at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport. Previously, they had to present their boarding passes in order to enter the priority security lane. However, after the introduction of the new system, they will have quick access through a separate lane using a face recognition system.
Commenting on the innovation, Thomas Hoff Anderson, Managing Director and COO of Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, said: “We are delighted to have convinced the Lufthansa Group, one of our most important customers, of the great potential of facial recognition to intelligentize the passenger experience at our airport. This is a good base to offer the new product to BER Traveler and passengers of other airlines.”
Berlin-Brandenburg Airport explains that in the first phase, the service will only provide access to priority boarding. However, in the future, using the face recognition system, it will also be possible to pass control at self-check-in counters for flights. “If the testing phase is successful, the function can be extended to other locations at the airport,” Berlin-Brandenburg said in a statement.
The use of the new biometric service is voluntary. All those who wish to register in the application from the provider FastID, where their biometric data will be stored, as well as personal data.
Passengers who have registered in the application will have the opportunity to decide before each trip whether they want to use the service on a particular flight . Only after that, the data will be transferred, and after the flight, will be deleted from FastID, remaining only in the client's application. This means that passengers will have full control over their data in the application and can delete it completely at any time.
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