Paperless Travel At Indian Airports Hits Aadhaar Hurdle!

The government’s plan to make air travel paperless in India has hit a bump.

The Unique Identification Authority of India(UIDAI) has refused to share Aadhaar biometric data with aviation authorities due to security reasons.

Civil Aviation Ministry is looking at different identity options to implement the “DigiYatra” scheme. The other options that can be used for identification of an air traveller are passports or special identity cards made for this purpose but they won’t be able to give the same benefits as an Aadhar card.

The scheme aims at making air travel simpler for passengers by linking their Aadhar information with the database of different airline stakeholders. This would remove the need for paper-based documents or manual security checks at airports.

Many airports were gearing up for this scheme by implementing biometric security scanners and e-ticket gates to automate the check-in process.

In fact, a few months back, the government had announced that they will implement paperless travel at airports such as Varanasi and Vijayawada, however, UIDAI’s decision may stall such a move.

There have been many incidents in recent times where the Aadhaar data has been leaked, raising questions on the security of the biometrics of Indian citizens. UIDAI claims that their database is safe, but incidents of data breach have made them reluctant to share data with external authorities and agencies.