DigiYatra enrollment process and FRT back in question again

A Vistara passenger on Friday bumped into the DigiYatra enrollment process unknowingly and unwillingly at boarding gate of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad. To which, the airlines replied, “As checked with the airport team we wish to confirm that pictures of all the customers are taken.” As per Civil Aviation Ministry’s guidelines for DigiYatra, at the time of consent collection, DigiYatra ecosystem will strictly inform and take consent from the user for the sharing of face biometric data for the airport checkpoints. IFF wrote, “Indian public authorities and police forces used facial recognition systems, jeorpardising the human rights and data privacy of millions of Indian citizens without much accountability.” It documents that in May 2024, Tamil Nadu Police’s FRT portal suffered a massive data leak, making 8,00,000 lines of data vulnerable. IFF in March 2024 noted that Indian Railways floated a tender for the installation of FRT-enabled CCTV cameras in train coaches to be used alongside face-matching servers to surveil and identify passengers and ‘curb crime’.