Press Release:
OARO is immensely excited to announce a strategic partnership with Air Canada, in making them the first airline in Canada to offer passengers the option of using advanced facial recognition technology to confirm identification.
OARO’s technology will power a pilot project currently underway, and significantly enhance travel in providing a frictionless, secure and touch-free experience for Air Canada passengers.
The aviation industry has promoted the idea of seamless travel for many years to help take the friction and pain out of everyday travel. Whether that’s to eliminate the time taken from airport arrival to your plane seat, or to limit the stress of check-in, immigration and security. Ultimately the goal has always been to provide more time for passengers to experience airport services, such as lounges, hospitality and retail.
This partnership will allow OARO to utilise their leading-edge Blockchain technology to enable Air Canada passengers faster, seamless access – all powered from the convenience of a mobile smartphone. The new biometrics and facial recognition technology will be trialled at both Vancouver and Pearson International Airports, with a few to further expand to other select Canadian airports and Maple Leaf Lounges. All data is fully encrypted, must be approved for use by the passenger on the day of travel and is only stored locally on a traveller’s device for 36 hours.
Garry Harrison, Chief Executive Officer of OARO said, “We’re hugely delighted to be working and partnering with Air Canada, an established Star Alliance and customer centric airline that’s continuously pushing the boundaries of digital innovation in this sector. It’s one of only a handful of global airlines that regularly receives top accolades from travellers over safely, security and passenger comfort so it’s great to see our technology help power this even more. We’ve all imagined a world that involves a straight-through seamless travel experience to your airline seat – well OARO and Air Canada have got one step closer to achieving that today”
For Air Canada, this new access technology will improve airport efficiency by increasing passenger transit and flow from arriving at the airport to departure gates.
Craig Landry, Executive VP and Chief Operations Officer, Air Canada, said, “Many of our customers already utilise digital credentials to simplify their daily activities such as unlocking mobile phones, entering workplaces, verifying identification during financial transactions and more. We are very excited to now take a leadership position in Canada and test digital identification using facial recognition technology to validate customer identification quickly, securely and accurately at select airport touchpoints. Participation in digital identification is voluntary. Customers choosing to use digital identification will benefit from a simplified and seamless process at the gate and when entering our Maple Leaf Lounges.”
Passengers who do not wish to use digital ID can simply board their flights or access lounges as normal by presenting their boarding pass and government-issued photo ID.
For further information:
https://www.aircanada.com/cl/en/aco/home/fly/at-the-airport/digital-identification.html#/
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