News item | 29-02-2024 | 09:30
This morning, KL672 landed from Montreal at Schiphol with passengers who used Digital Travel Credential (DTC), which quickly and efficiently guided them through border controls using ‘Tap & Go’. The flight is part of a pilot in which research is being conducted until March 31, 2024 into the operation of DTC-1 – a copy of the digital information on the chip of the passport – in combination with facial recognition at border controls. The pilot is being carried out on behalf of the European Commission by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and National Identity Data Service in collaboration with the Royal Military Police, Schiphol, KLM and technology supplier Idemia.
The European Commission requested that the use of a DTC in the border process be tested in practice. The EU is currently developing policy for the use of a digital travel document, which could potentially enable the use of DTC for boarding and border passage in the future.
The pilot
Passengers flying with KLM from Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal) to Amsterdam are eligible to participate in the pilot, provided they have a Belgian, Dutch or Canadian passport and are over 18 years old. They will receive an email from KLM asking if they would like to participate in the pilot. The passenger can upload the passport information at home in a specially developed app, in combination with a facial photo. This way, the check can be done by the border control authority at an early stage, before arrival at Schiphol. Upon arrival at Schiphol, participants go through a special DTC ‘Tap & Go’ border gate. The DTC is collected based on a facial scan. Participants then hold their passports against the border gate. If there is a match between the DTC and the passport presented and no details have emerged from the previously carried out checks, the border can be crossed. A physical passport remains necessary for the pilot. The expectation is that in this way the traveler can go through the border process more quickly.
Busy airports
The number of passengers is increasing and the airports are becoming increasingly busy. As a logical next step to online check-in at home, the pilot is investigating how we can further innovate controls at the airport during boarding and border passage. The traveler can also prepare for these steps at home and the process at the airport can be faster and contactless.
About DTC-1
DTC-1 is a technological standard issued by ICAO. With DTC-1 in combination with the application of biometrics, travelers can cross the border quickly and more easily. DTC-1 contains information from the biographical page in the passport (surname, first names, etc.), supplemented with some technical elements to determine that the information has actually been obtained from an authentic passport. An important feature of DTC-1 is that this information must always be used in combination with the physical passport. Travelers only have to ‘tap’ their passport on a reader and continue walking.