At airports, are you forced to enrol on DigiYatra? In a letter to the TMC MP, Scindia clarifies

A number of fliers have expressed dissatisfaction with forced enrollment on DigiYatra, a contactless mobility platform powered by facial recognition technology (FRT).Jyotiraditya Scindia, the minister of civil aviation, has made it clear that passengers’ approval is required in order to collect face biometrics during kiosk-based registration, and that participation in DigiYatra is entirely voluntary.Saket Gokhale, a TMC MP, had expressed worry about reports of people being enrolled without their express agreement. Earlier this month, Gokhale noted in a letter to Scindia a number of grievances raised by travellers alleging that they were coerced into signing up for DigiYatra at airports all around India and that their biometrics were being surreptitiously collected without their knowledge.

In response, Scindia highlighted that DigiYatra is intended to be a simple, voluntary process for air travel that offers a hassle-free experience. He emphasised that the system’s main component is a smartphone app, on which the passenger’s device stores all of the data. “Airports provide kiosk based registration only for the day of travel to facilitate passengers who intend to use Digiyatra but do not have the app installed,” Scindia stated.