SITA and IDEMIA collaborate on development of Digital Travel Ecosystem
November 8, 2024
With a focus on driving interoperability for emerging biometric solutions, the partnership between the two technology heavyweights aims to develop a trusted network that brings together key players across the industry.
As stakeholders across the aviation industry increasingly turn their attention to the wider adoption of digital identities and biometric solutions, the challenges in maintaining consistency, trust and security across the travel journey are also increasing. The aim of SITA’s Digital Travel Ecosystem is to bring these key players together and leverage their expertise to develop an interoperable framework that ensures a traveller’s digital identity is trusted globally, without the need for direct integrations between issuers and verifiers.
With IDEMIA’s collaboration, SITA is able to “enhance the ability of stakeholders to trust a travellers’ digital identity across the entire travel journey,” according to Jeremy Springall, SVP of Borders at SITA. The collaboration he added is “critical” to advance global standards for privacy, trust and security “while enabling smoother operations and reducing costs.”
At the core of the ecosystem is a privacy-by-design approach, developed in partnership with Indicio to enable the secure sharing of passengers’ digital credentials. This will ensure that passenger information is only shared with their explicit consent, enabling data to then be shared securely across different sectors. IDEMIA’s involvement will focus on definining and promoting interoperability of biometric and digital systems, ensuring a passenger’s digital identity can be verified across multiple airports, borders and travel touchpoints.
This approach provides a “responsible, transparent soltuions for ensuring how passenger information is shared,” commented Tim Ferris, SVP, Travel & Transport, IDEMIA Public Security. “By integrating our technologies around common standards, we can drive global adoption of secured digital capability and biometric authentication, ensuring that passengers’ data remains secure while delivering a streamlined travel experience.”
