Vision-Box’s Mobile ID - a decisive step forward towards making today’s travel experience safe, seamless and contactless


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There’s an undisputed truth about today’s travel ecosystem – health-conscious travellers seek experiences that are as contactless as they can be. The distribution of COVID-19 vaccines continues across the globe. With it, travellers are experiencing greater confidence about venturing outside of their own homes. This has led to a surge in domestic tourism. People are also making plans for foreign travel, in anticipation of the reopening of international borders.
  

However, matters of health, safety, and sanitation are top of mind for travellers in this period of recovery. Customers assessing transport services and travel destinations are as concerned now about the cleanliness and physical health protocols observed by these organisations, as they are about enjoying a stress-free, frictionless experience. Points of interaction that limit physical contact and provide timely and convenient service are held in high esteem.   

Fresh Challenges for Travel Operators but there’s a clear opportunity for improvement ahead  

In this prevailing atmosphere, travel operators face not only the challenge of keeping their premises sanitised and observing stringent health protocols. They must also rise to the expectations of the digital consumer.  

Since the height of the pandemic, shoppers in all sectors of the economy have become accustomed to the speed and convenience of online search and transactions. This of course includes travel. Today’s travellers expect a digital option to be available at every stage of their journey.   

For stakeholders throughout the industry – airlines, airports, transport companies, and border control agencies alike – there is an impetus to incorporate digital and mobile technologies into all aspects of their operations. This will enable them to both meet customer expectations, and to improve their own internal efficiencies.  

One important aspect is that, as rules and conditions on the ground are still liable to change at a moment’s notice, travel operators can highly benefit from real-time access to traveller information at any point throughout their journey.  

How Vision-Box's Mobile ID Fits into the Picture  

Vision-Box's Mobile ID is a mobile-centric digital identity framework. It allows customers to use their mobile devices to easily project their identity into the digital domain in compliance with ICAO DTC framework. Rather than having to display a physical identity document, travellers use their biometric data as proof of their identity. This allows for seamless experiences through airport journeys and reduces the time spent in bureaucratic processes and other necessary protocols.  
 

By providing a contactless and paperless experience, Vision-Box Mobile ID helps travel operators meet customer demands for speed and convenience. It also provides a mechanism that is in line with the health-conscious attitude of today’s travellers.  

For airport operations, Mobile ID increases traveller throughput at each checkpoint. This leads to greater operational efficiency for the airport facility, thus providing a source of increased revenue for the airport, as travellers are free to browse and spend more at concession stands, shops, and food outlets.    

How Vision-Box's Mobile ID Works  

For travel document capture, the travel document is identified through scanning of its machine-readable zone. For e-documents, the user is prompted to place the mobile device over the travel document to perform a Radio Frequency ID (RFID) scan to extract available data. In cases where it is supported by the Travel Document and the Country of issuance, passive authentication of the document is also available as an option.  

A barcode reading mechanism facilitates the process of extracting information from the traveller’s boarding pass. The functionality of the Vision-Box Mobile ID Boarding Pass Reader supports the different boarding pass formats classified as per IATA recommendations: PDF417, Aztec, QR code, or Data Matrix. Depending on the infrastructure facilities available at the airport, the boarding pass reading process can be physical or digital.  

Biometric capture is facilitated via the Vision-Box Mobile ID Software Development Kit or SDK. This provides functionality that simplifies the process of obtaining a frame for biometric checks. We use face automatic detection technology, real-time instructions, and real-time controls for high quality self-capture of the user’s face.  

The Vision-Box Mobile ID SDK also enables various stakeholders to gain access to different types of biometric services. This occurs through an Application Programming Interface (API) integration that gives easy access to features like travel document capture and the Boarding Pass Reader – all tied to the biometric and biographic information provided by the customer/traveller. In line with the Vision-Box concept whereby individuals are free to use their biometric identity to simplify their lives, this approach gives travellers total control over their data.  

How Vision-Box Mobile ID Maintains Quality Standards  

The Mobile ID SDK is integrated with the Seamless Journey Platform, our Digital Identity Management Platform, to connect multiple stakeholders around the traveller journey. The Seamless Journey Platform integration allows the sharing of passenger biometric information with different stakeholders throughout the airport journey. The required security level is assured by following the Privacy by Design principles and certification, in line with the Passenger Data Envelope concept.  

Our Image Quality service ensures that the image's quality is compliant with Enrolment for Identification standards. These standards are based on ICAO 9303 Face frontal criteria. In addition to this, the Mobile ID SDK ensures the first level of checks optimising the flow of data transferred, before submitting the image to an Seamless Journey Platform service where the final control is performed.  

Our Liveness Detection functionality can detect whether the face present for image capture is in fact from a live individual or a forged image. The feature employs a third-party service that uses a silent Passive solution, certified Level 2 by the standard ISO/IEC 30107-3 Presentation Attack Standard.    

Finally, our Biometric Matching service allows you to submit two different biometric images to check that they represent the same person. In cases where you need to check if the current user is the same person as the physical ID owner in any enrolment process, this service is particularly useful. Biometric Matching also converts the candidate image into a Template, which allows you to optimise the flow of data transferred.  

Through these various features and mechanisms, Vision-Box Mobile ID offers a secure, seamless authentication method that enables users to fly through any identity check – even border control – and services anywhere, without showing any document. 

Contact us for more details. 

Publish date: July 2021

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