Proposal to continue piloting the application of facial recognition technology when traveling by plane

Aviation security staff at Noi Bai airport check passenger information before entering the security screening point. Illustration photo: Huy Hung/VNA

Recently, the Civil Aviation Authority held a meeting to discuss legal regulations when applying biometric authentication technology in passenger check-in procedures.

After a pilot period at Cat Bi International Airport (Hai Phong City), it has been shown that the whole process has not clearly shown the advantages and limitations of the applied options. Therefore, the Civil Aviation Authority reported to the Ministry of Transport to allow more pilot time, to gain experience to develop the most advanced, suitable and effective biometric authentication application options.

In order for the application of biometric authentication technology in air travel procedures to comply with legal regulations in general and civil aviation laws in particular, the Civil Aviation Authority reports to the Ministry of Transport to propose amending and supplementing regulations on air travel documents and passenger information, initially in the direction of including electronic identification accounts (level 2) in the list of accepted replacements for personal documents used for air travel; reducing the number of air travel documents for those types of documents whose management agencies have set limits on their intended use.

In addition, the Civil Aviation Authority proposed to amend and supplement regulations on air travel documents to encourage the use of documents integrated in the electronic identification and authentication account system or the citizen identification and passport data system; and to provide clearer regulations on the collection, management and use of passenger information when passengers check in for flights.

In addition, the Civil Aviation Authority also requested aviation agencies and units to urgently implement the directives issued by the authority, speed up the implementation of the Project "Developing applications of population data, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period 2022 - 2025, with a vision to 2030" issued under Decision No. 06/QD-TTg dated January 6, 2023 of the Prime Minister.

According to VNA