New Delhi, Feb 23 (PTI) The civil aviation ministry on Thursday said more than 1.6 lakh air travellers have used the DigiYatra process.

In the first phase, the DigiYatra facility was introduced at three airports -- Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi -- on December 1, 2022. It will be rolled out at Kolkata, Pune, Vijayawada, and Hyderabad airports by March 2023.

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DigiYatra is a biometric boarding system using facial recognition technology to provide a seamless and hassle-free experience for passengers at airports.

"The total number of passengers who have used the DigiYatra process at the airports from 1st Dec 22 to 14th February 23 is 1.6 lakh plus. The total app user base of DigiYatra on the Android Play Store & iOS Apple App Store is 422K," the ministry said in a release.

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It said that in the DigiYatra process, there is no central storage of passengers' personally identifiable information data.

"All the passenger's data is encrypted and stored in the wallet of the passenger's smartphone and shared only for a limited time duration with the airport of travel origin where the passenger's Digi Yatra ID needs to be validated. The data is purged from the system within 24 hours of the flight," it added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)