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Geneva airport ready to introduce facial recognition

Geneva airport ready to introduce facial recognition
Geneva airport ready to introduce facial recognition Keystone-SDA

Geneva International Airport would like to use facial recognition to improve passenger flow and security. This was revealed yesterday by public broadcaster RTS. The project is awaiting the green light from the federal government.

“The passenger’s face would become his boarding pass,” airport technical director Massimo Gentile summed up on Sunday evening on the RTS ‘Mise au Point‘ programme. “When a passenger arrives at the airport, he will have a first point of contact in front of which he will have to check in,” Gentile explained.

“From then on, the biometric image can be used in all airport passages where boarding passes or documents are required,” according to the technical director. “The data is very reliable, more reliable than human recognition. This can actually help to increase security”.

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Gentile points out that the airport now has the appropriate equipment. But biometrics has not yet been activated, and will not be until we have the authorisation to do so, Gentile emphasised

According to RTS, all airports in the country share this project. The revision of the Civil Aviation Act is not expected before the end of 2026. During the broadcast, RTS recalled that a similar project by the Swiss federal railways had caused a lot of uproar in 2023.

Adapted from Italian by DeepL/ac

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