Surveillance or security? Digi Yatra app divides opinion on facial scanning
Social media has been flooded with complaints of how people are being coerced into using the Digi Yatra app, which uses facial scanning biometrics. Is it really risky? And what do the stakeholders have to say about it? Suraksha P finds out.
Akshay Gupta recently posted on social media platform X (previously Twitter) that he was denied entry at the Varanasi airport because he “did not follow the Digi Yatra lane”.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIM KozhikodeIIMK Advanced Data Science For ManagersVisitIIM LucknowIIML Executive Programme in FinTech, Banking & Applied Risk ManagementVisitMITMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisit“All Indigo passengers were forced into it, citing some circular, but no proof shown when demanded,” he wrote. “IDs not presented when asked, even CISF personnel blocked entry,” he said.
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He was not alone. In the recent past, social media has been flooded by similar complaints.
On January 16, in a blog on its website, digital rights organisation Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said it had written “to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, NITI Aayog, Airports Authority of India, Digi Yatra Foundation and the Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kochi, and Hyderabad regional airports, bringing their attention to the worrisome implementation of the Digi Yatra service across airports in India”.
“We urge them to completely withdraw Digi Yatra from Indian airports owing to its large gamut of concerns relating to privacy, surveillance, exclusion errors
