NEC Corporation has announced that Japan’s Narita International Airport and Tokyo International Airport will commence trials for Face Express, a new boarding procedure for international departure flights using facial recognition technology, this April.
The system uses facial recognition from NEC’s portfolio of advanced biometric authentication technologies, Bio-IDiom.
Face Express will allow passengers to access and proceed through procedures at the airport (check-in, baggage drop, security checkpoint entrance, boarding gate, etc.) without showing their passport and boarding pass by registering their facial image. The process is designed to be seamless and reduce the infection risks posed by person-to-person contact.
The two airports will commence trial operation on April 13 and they expect to launch the service in July.
The new boarding procedure is recognized as One ID in the aviation industry, however, the Face Express name and logo were created so that passengers could more visually understand the service.