Airside, Tascent team up to provide biometric solution for COVID-19-battered travel industry

Airside and Tascent have announced a partnership intended to deliver an integrated biometric solution to the global travel industry, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The companies have built an interoperable solution combining their technologies to bring touchless convenience to various airport touchpoints.

The companies said in a joint statement that the partnership seeks to make available a secure, seamless and contactless biometrics technology to airlines and airports to enable them deliver their services more safely and quickly. They say the solution, which is already available for immediate application, has superlative user experience and is built in accordance with data privacy standards and regulations. With it, a traveler has total control of their personal information while travelling, and biometrics are used to unify the traveler’s experience end-to-end, the statement adds.

The statement said the solution is designed to handle the new challenges facing emerging safety and security processes which travel industry actors have been forced to adopt as they try to respect health guidelines related to the pandemic. Some of such challenges cited include long queues, shared touch points as well as unqualified and ineffective products used for temperature checks.

According to the statement, using the solution begins with an easy mobile biometrics enrolment with the help of Airside’s digital identity app which connects travelers and businesses by enabling biometric identity verification and sharing of personal information such as driver’s licenses, passports and lab test results.

At the airport, the travelers can complete various processes including check-in at airlines’ self-service kiosks, bag-drop and security checks, with Tascent’s InSight Face facial recognition technology which is optimized for the airport environment. The system captures high-quality biometric images, enabling best-in-class facial matching via Tascent’s Enterprise Suite against the personal information already provided via the Airside App.

Jessica Patel, Chief Revenue Officer at Airside underlined the importance of the partnership saying the solution will help secure sensitive personal data of travelers and fight fraud.

“What’s more, is that most of these digital transactions involving sensitive personal information needed for identity proofing end up in some sort of database, making them available for marketing purposes and vulnerable to theft and fraud. We don’t think data privacy should be sacrificed for the sake of convenience,” she said.

For Alastair Partington, Tascent Chief Executive Officer, the partnership in intended to solve big-picture challenges in the travel industry. “We’ve seen incredible changes in the aviation industry. We’re focused on helping to solve the big-picture issues across the system, rather than just implementing a stand-alone tool. By innovating and combining best-of-breed capabilities, we addressed specific challenges faced by aviation stakeholders today – improving safety for everyone on the ground and on board, keeping operations agile, and boosting traveler confidence and overall satisfaction,” he said.

Article Topics

airports  |  Airside Mobile  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  facial recognition  |  interoperability  |  mobile biometrics  |  Tascent  |  travel and tourism