A major international airport is to expand its use of facial recognition technology to replace passport checks and verify travellers’ identities when boarding planes.
Singapore’s Changi airport will also look to use cameras to scan the faces of passengers elsewhere in the airport to find those who have missed the last boarding call for their flight, according to Reuters.
Airport officials said people should not be worried about their privacy being compromised.
“We have lots of reports of lost passengers… we need to detect and find people who are on the flight, with permission from the airlines,” said Steve Lee, Changi Airport Group’s chief information officer.
The tech is already being used in terminal 4 for self-service check-in as well as bag drop, immigration and boarding.
The plan is to introduce it throughout the rest of the airport in a year’s time.
“Today you take passport, you show your face and you show your boarding pass,” said Lee. “In future, you just take your face. You don’t need your passport.”