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Topics: News, World News, Travel
Kit Roberts
An airline has got people talking after introducing a new way for people to get through check in and the border.
This is a way to track individuals through the airport using biometric data, simply by following them on cameras and other devices.
These will register things such as iris scans to identify passengers. In practice, the airline has said it will mean that people can just 'stroll through' the airport without even having to have their passport checked.
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It was put in place in the Emirates lounge in Dubai Airport in the United Arab Emirates back in 2020, and the airline has said it hopes to make the process smoother, and to 'reduce human interaction'.
Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Chief Operating Officer said: “We have always focused on providing a great customer experience at any touchpoint and now it is more vital than before to make use of technology and implement products, and introduce processes that focuses not only on fast tracking customers, but more importantly on health and safety during their travel journey.
"The state-of-the-art, contactless biometric path is the latest in a series of initiatives we have introduced to make sure that travelling on Emirates is a seamless journey and gives customers added peace of mind.”
It might mean that you don't need your passport for one section of your journey, but safe to say it's probably worth taking it along.
You know, for every other airport.
Needless to say, people already have a lot of thoughts about the new system.
One person wasn't convinced it was even much faster than simply scanning your passport
They wrote: "I already did this in Dubai last week. Go through the gates with facial recognition. Takes the same amount of time as scanning the passport."
Another raised the prospect that you should definitely still take your passport along with you.
They wrote: "Imagine there is a glitch and you don't have ur passport...also not every country will accept that."
There are of course concerns to be raised about an airport having the ability to read people's biometric data to this level of accuracy and reliability.
Responding to this, one person observed that most of us already carry round our own personal tracking device anyway.
They posted: "Makes sense seen as your phone can be your bank card, computer and everything else."
Another pointed out that if someone really wants to track you down, they won't need biometric cameras to do so.
They wrote: "So they have your passport on file and your name is used to recognize who you are. Not much different."