New Delhi/IBNS: For a seamless and hassle-free air travel experience, India launched a mechanism for facial recognition at the airports called Digi Yatra on Thursday.

Digi Yatra is developed to achieve contactless and seamless processing of passengers at airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT).

The mechanism allows travellers to pass through various checkpoints at the airports through paperless and contactless processing using facial features to establish their identity which could be linked to the boarding pass.

In the first phase, it has been launched at seven airports and for domestic flight passengers only.

On Thursday, it was initially launched at three airports -- Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi -- followed by four airports -- Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, and Vijayawada -- by March 2023.

Subsequently, the technology would be implemented across the country.

To use this facility, a one-time registration on the Digi Yatra app is required using Aadhaar-based validation and a self-image capture.

There is no central storage of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). The passenger's ID and travel credentials are stored in a secure wallet on the passenger's smartphone itself.