The Ministry of Civil Aviation has decided to move its landmark Digi Yatra platform beyond domestic terminals and test it on outbound international passengers between October and December 2026. According to officials quoted in the Hindustan Times, trials will run at Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin airports, initially covering terminal entry, security screening and, potentially, boarding gates. Immigration checks will remain manual during the pilot, but the long-term vision is a fully automated border-control corridor that links Digi Yatra with the Bureau of Immigration’s Fast-Track Immigration Trusted Traveller Programme (FTI-TTP) and, eventually, with foreign airports. Unlike the domestic system that authenticates travellers through Aadhaar e-KYC, the international version will rely on e-passports. Passengers will scan the chip page with their smartphones, match the embedded photo to a selfie and store a digital credential in a secure wallet. Airport e-gates will then perform face-in-the-crowd matching to open access points, eliminating paper documents and reducing bottlenecks at peak departure hours. The policy team is finalising cybersecurity audits, NFC chip-reading standards and data-sharing protocols. A vulnerability assessment by CERT-In and certification by the Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification Directorate are under way. If the three-month trial proves reliable, the government plans to phase in automated immigration kiosks and pursue interoperability pilots with IATA, ICAO and the EU’s EUDI wallet initiative. For multinational employers, the change promises faster crew rotations and smoother executive departures. Travel-management companies say a 10-minute cut in curb-to-gate time could save large corporates thousands of productive hours each year. However, compliance teams must update travel policies to ensure employees carry an e-passport (not all Indian passports are yet biometric) and enrol in Digi Yatra before reaching the airport. Data-privacy officers will also need to review the consent architecture once immigration modules go live.
Source: Hindustan Times
