The test
of a digital travel credential for border crossing in Aruba is being called
a success and prompting those involved – SITA, Indicio and the government of Aruba
– to move to the next step of development.
The pilot in April allowed participating
travelers to download an app to house their passport data in digital form, enabling
them to be cleared to enter Aruba before leaving their departure city and
eliminating the need to show a passport upon arrival in the country.
The test was relatively small,
taking place over two weeks with 24 travelers arriving from the United States and
Canada.
But SITA senior vice president for
border management Jeremy Springall said it was enough to validate the benefits of a
digital travel credential for travelers and for the destination.
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Springall said because the
app-based credential pulls the majority of the necessary data from the passport
chip, it sped up the process for travelers “by about 90%,” while also providing
higher quality data for risk assessment to Aruba’s border authorities. In
addition, because the credential is based on a decentralized, blockchain-based
system, implementation was very efficient.
“There’s not some big central
system that needs to be developed,” Springall said.
“We have a very straightforward
way of creating this, and a lot of the data is held in a decentralized way with
the passenger, so the systems are simpler.”
Authorities in Aruba were pleased
enough with the pilot to now begin working toward full implementation.
“For passengers, there will be a
seamless process - from before departure until arrival at their hotel in Aruba
- in principle, no lines,” said Edwin Kelly, director general of the Department
of Civil Aviation in Aruba.
Ultimately, the intention is for the digital credential to serve as the traveler’s
identification for everything in their trip, from car rental pick-up to
hotel check-in to entry at attractions. For the Aruba pilot, the credential also
served as identification for travelers visiting an attraction – the Butterfly
Farm – to test its use for venue access and to demonstrate the fact that the
traveler controls what data is shared when and with whom.
“When you are going across the
border, you obviously need to provide a lot of data to the government so they
can clear you, but if you are entering a casino, for example, the casino just
needs to know you are over a certain age, they don’t actually need to know your
date of birth or your passport details,” Springall said.
“It is about selective disclosure
based on the real ‘need to know.’”
Stakeholder synergy
The challenges of implementation
are less about the technology itself and more about the need for cooperation
and agreement among governments, airports and airlines.
Kelly said that is why Aruba has
been an ideal testing ground.
The adoption of digital identities will be the biggest technology breakthrough in the travel industry in decades.
Jeremy Springall - SITA
“It’s a small island. … The systems
are in place, everybody knows each other, everything happens on a smaller scale,
so the environment is perfect to implement things like this in a more efficient
and quick way,” he said.
Springall said interest in this
type of solution - open-source, decentralized identity technology – is
accelerating across all types of destinations, and in fact it can create an advantage
for emerging markets.
“I’ve been presenting at conferences in Africa
… even though the infrastructure there is more limited today, with this
technology it enables them to almost surpass what other countries are doing
because they are not held back by legacy systems,” Springall said.
SITA’s Passenger IT Insights
survey in 2022 found 87%
of respondents have positive feelings about using technology for identity
control – up 11% since 2016. And IATA’s
2022 Global Passenger Survey found more than 80% of travelers are willing
to share passport data to expedite airport processing.
“We are of the belief, as are many
other industry players like IATA, that we are moving away from traveling with a
physical passport and moving towards a digital way of traveling,” Springall
said.
“It took a little while for people
to be comfortable with putting your credit card on your mobile phone … and now
we are all very comfortable using mobile wallets. ... Why not capture more information
in relation to digital identities for travel?”
To spur this development, SITA and
Indicio have entered a “co-innovation agreement” to accelerate deployment of
digital identities for travel.
SITA’s digital travel credential
uses Indicio Proven technology to create a trusted travel network that streamlines
verifications for travelers, governments and suppliers such as hotels and
airlines. And SITA is integrating the technology with its other solutions, such
as SmartPath, which uses biometrics to move travelers through an airport.
Interest has been coming in from airports, governments and airlines, which Springall said are particularly interested because the
creation of a traveler-managed digital identification eliminates the need for
the airline to store personally identifiable information, thereby reducing
their risk of violating the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation and other privacy measures.
“The adoption of digital
identities will be the biggest technology breakthrough in the travel industry
in decades,” Springall said.
“It will simplify the
identification process at every step of the journey and open up opportunities
for the air transport industry to fully embrace the benefits of seamless travel
and the digital economy. SITA, together with Indicio, are proud to be leading
the charge.”