In a matter of years, no matter where you live or travel, your face will likely be your new passport.
For centuries, people have used some type of passport to get from one place to another. But the widespread standardization of passports as we know them today didn’t actually begin until after World War Iwhen passports were commonly used as a security measure and to deter spies from entering a country. Even then, some considered Passports are an “anachronism in the modern world.”
But the use of paper passports, which were first digitized as “e-passports” with NFC chips in 2006, is slowly undergoing one of its biggest transformations to date. The travel industry, airports and governments are working to eliminate the need to show your passport when flying internationally. Over time, you may not need to carry your passport at all.
Instead, facial recognition technology and smartphones are increasingly used to verify and confirm your identity with travel details before you can fly. These systems, advocates say, can reduce the amount of wait time and “friction” experienced at airports. But privacy experts warn that there is little transparency about the technologies being deployed and that their proliferation could lead to data breaches and increased levels of surveillance.
The push to eliminate paper passports is happening around the world. Until now, Finland’s airports, CanadaNetherlands, United Arab Emiratesthe united kingdom, ItalyUSA, Indiaand elsewhere they have been testing various levels of travel without passports or the technology needed to make it a reality. In October, officials in Singapore announced that its residents can fly to and from the country without using their documentation, and that foreign visitors can “enjoy the convenience of passport-free processing when leaving Singapore.” More than 1.5 million people have used the systems, officials say.
“As I understand it, it will probably become the usual way of traveling in the near future,” says Athina Ioannou, a professor of business analytics at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, who has researched the privacy implications of different types of trips. Ioannou says the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated contactless travel, and many efforts are driven by trying to get passengers to move quickly through airports.
While testing around the world is at different stages and uses different technical infrastructure, broadly speaking it works in a similar way: information historically stored on your passport’s NFC chip, including facial data, is digitally stored and linked to your phone. The EU plans to build a official travel app for this. When at an airport, you can show your phone and a facial recognition camera will try to match it with your passport photo.