Face scans will get you through security and onto your flight from Hong Kong from next year
Passports and boarding cards to take back seat to new technology at one of the world’s busiest airports
A quick face scan will soon be enough to get you through security, past immigration and onto your plane from Hong Kong, bosses at the city’s airport have announced.
By next year, biometric technology will be used instead of boarding passes and passports, in a plan that promises a seamless exit from the city.
Hong Kong International Airport is one of the world’s busiest airports, passed through by 70 million people in 2016. And it will be one of the first major adopters of facial recognition technology, which it plans to roll out for the second quarter of 2018.
Fred Lam Tin-fuk, chief executive of the Hong Kong Airport Authority, said the innovative overhaul was meant “to enhance the passenger’s experience and digitise all the facilities and make the airport operation smarter”.
The authority said travellers, under the plan, would show their passport at their first check-in, and give a face scan. After that, they would use the face scans to get through security and immigration and for boarding.