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Deep dive into to opportunities and challenges of using a digital travel credential to obtain a visa, cross a border, bord a flight and check in to a hotel. Will the ICAO DTC be the solution and what role will IATA OneID play in the digitization of travel facilitation?
Deep dive into to opportunities and challenges of using a digital travel credential to obtain a visa, cross a border, bord a flight and check in to a hotel. Will the ICAO DTC be the solution and what role will IATA OneID play in the digitization of travel facilitation?
All men. I guess I'm the gender balance here. Thank you. I am very happy with this panel because in the little, we're in a bubble here talking about digital identity wallets, but this is an even smaller bubble where we talk about travel and digital identity and we have some of the brightest and influential thought leaders on the topic on the panel. And so I hope we have a frank discussion about what is going on. I will first like to ask you all to briefly introduce yourself and say what is your relationship to the topic. So Lauren Kickoff. Yeah. Good afternoon everyone. So I'm Lauren Lou.
I'm currently coordinating the one of the large scale pilot work package on travel and payment at EWC and currently working on the e passport credential. More specifically to check actually how we can accommodate with the current specification regulation and market requirements. You just dropped a few things there that I'm sure we will be talking about. Francois. My name is Francois. I work at abba an IT group, a global travel tech that power most of the airlines and some hotels on the planet Carala.
So we have 15,000 employees, any this company around the digital identity initiative where traveler will use various systems from travel agencies, airline hotels to show who they are and to get a better experience. Gabriel, Gabriel Marque working at iata, the International Air Transport Association, looking after digital identity initiative. IATA is the bodies that help airline gather to define business, operational and technical standards for the operation. And more precisely to what of is of interest to us right now operation around checking and at the airport. Fantastic.
Vim, even though you were just maybe some people joined. So just very briefly, I'm VI Ingham. I work as an architect in the Ministry of Justice and Security in the Netherlands and I work in the program of border innovation to try and enhance border innovation with new technology. Fantastic. Dan? Dan Heimer with Accenture. I'm in our digital identity innovations and biometrics group. I'm on ISO standards for biometrics and and for security devices. For personal id like MDLI support iada. In a former life I was a chief engineer for global entry. That's a lot.
So in, I think it was November, 2020, the specifications for the digital travel credential type one were published. It is 2024 and we have pilots, why don't we see a huge adoption yet of this necessary virtual credential of the passport. Why is it taking so long? What needs to happen before we can all use A-A-D-T-C? Will we have it in our wallet? Will we have a app law?
Yeah, maybe O one point is actually to understand is the difference of level of assurance that we have in this different ecosystem. So on one hand you have probably the most decentralized credential that we can imagine. This is this one, right? With ax surface that is close to zero because I have it in my pocket. So it's very nice, but it's very, I mean when you want to share your information specifically online, you need to make all the data processing with the passport, NFC chip, et cetera. So it's very cumbersome, not very user-friendly.
And on the other side you have airlines for example, that requests currently for the advanced passenger information, even things manually data entered manually. So I think this, the spectrum explains actually why this is currently so difficult and to my perspective, I don't know the others, but I think there, there we, we might need to find, let's say a midway in between all those different requirements so that we can fulfill probably both the travel, let's say the border crossing and then the travel industry.
Yeah, Fran, go ahead. So maybe an you get the view on the topic. I'm new to travel. When I look at your question, why not more DTC around the corner today, if you want to travel, you need a passport. There's people on paper process that works. So for DTC to be there, it needs to be working much better than anything else. And if you look at pilots, you need to put some infrastructure in place, some dedicated lanes. It's a separate process. It's a new process. So that's maybe one reason.
Second, a lot of brave countries who started to enter the world of digitization of admission have solution. They will need to migrate to a new standard. So spend some money to get to the same situation. Now what I see hope is that maybe some less regulated touch point, like airline boarding for example, could allow private companies issue their own DTCs and then allow non-regulated touch point to be used in a digital way, in a DTC way. So this way we will see more option not maybe at the border control because it takes a lot of effort and heavy lifting. Yeah.
But maybe more at the commercial touch points potentially. Yeah. 'cause airlines are willing to digitize the process. This is a great step up to Gabriel because IATA has to solve complying with rules and regulations like I-K-O-N-X nine, your members, the airlines. But one idea is trying to solve this. Indeed.
And, and maybe just to piggyback on what Franco was saying, so indeed there might be a hard step to, to take for governments to start issuing DTC, but at the same time I think there's been numbers of of positions that A DTC is only A DTC if it's issued by member states. So you've got a bit of a catch 22 situation where you say, okay, government needs to have an incentive to go for it. They don't really have it. And at the same time there is no alternative.
And that's pretty much where one idea is coming into place because the DTC is a tool designed to meet government requirements for, or border requirements for border needs and airline private industry members have different name in terms of data in term of privacy and in term of level of assurance. So that's where one idea is coming forward. So one ID is the name of the initiative under atar where airline try to digitalize admisibility to travel.
And what has been put on the table there by airlines is actually to create a copy of the passport as a verifiable credential that can then be created by private entities and then used for private entities driven touch points. So that's, that's let's say the core, the IAT mission, and to bring more well awareness of what's being done and what can be achieved. We organizing end-to-end POCs to actually make everybody aware of what is the potential and what can be achieved.
Because everybody in this room probably has, is pretty clear on the feasibility of this maybe for more than 10 years for some of you. But I can tell you every time we show little two minutes video, we've got quite a few wow moments in this.
So, so no, that's part of what we're doing. Yeah, You want to respond right away or Dan is also Yeah, No, i, I think a lot of good positives. I think in terms of like standards right now, the these DTC one specs is what the, the dtc, it just describes the format of it. How do you get it into your device? We already talked about some of the problems they had with the different devices being able to read it. And this specification doesn't say how does it get from my device to the Royal Dutch police or, so that's all custom at that point.
As, as Gabriel said, one idea is gonna wrap the DTC using W three C standard specifications to get it from a person's device to, To its destination in a Secure fashion. So we're getting into the e passport credential discussion, which is good and BIM wants to respond.
Yeah, but I think Lauren was Laura, go for it. And then can gear up.
I'm, I'm an impatient guy, people know that about me. So what I say, you can do it for real as well, and then they all find a thing.
But I, I think DTC, Zi and German is well positioned as being a, a very good carrier for for, for identity information on, on border control because it, it piggybacks on this world of trust that is already in place around passports. So that's the, so, so I think it's well positioned, but making changes in border control is, is very difficult because you have to do with legislation, all kinds of parties involved, like you're shown on the dear board because that's why it's not going that fast. That's I think the main explanation.
Yeah, and, and completely agree. But, but, but I think the, the, the question here is not about really the standard because here basically we have the attributes that are basically the same. The question is who is the issuer? Because actually if we solve it from the, an industry point of view with, for example, one ID from iata, actually from a user perspective, we don't have, we haven't solved the issue because then I need my passport data for getting into a hotel or opening a bank account or somewhere else, and then I need to redo exactly the same.
So from my perspective, these credential should really be issued by the issuance authority that is responsible for the physical document. And then we solve the issue once for all. The issue is that the mandate from, from the, from the IKO is not to serve the private entities, but just the cross the border crossing. And I think that's the, Which is in my, my quick introduction, I said, you know, it's, it's about security. Don't forget it. That's a really important part of it and it's about making it easier, making processes more efficient.
But security of course for governments is first and foremost and that means complying, but that's also the hotel check-in, that's also about security. Francois.
Yeah, the really cool thing, because I don't want to put too much gloom on the, on the room, there's a private sector use cases that can use credential that are easier to start today at a scale than border control. So security DTC is super important, but in travel, there's so many use cases. You say checking at hotel, there's so many other use cases. Leaving a verified review after a trip, collecting your receipt as a credential for expenses, personalizing your offer from a travel seller, if you share generality.
So there's a type of credential in travel is about who you are to cross the border. There's plenty of other credential in travel about who you are as a person, how you want to be marketed at, what kind of experience do you want to have. So travel in travel, we're lucky there's regulated use cases, we will get scaled, but it's tricky.
It's, it's long, it's a long process. We need to change law and there's a bunch of really operational and interesting use cases that are not regulated that we can deploy at scale today. So I think travel is super exciting for them. Oh It is, it is. Because identity is at the core of every, every step you take, it's all about. Yeah. So absolutely.
Vim, I'm coming back to you because you're the only government representative here. Sorry to pick on you, but like you say, it is for the, for border control, it is a perfect tool, so to speak.
The DTC, how do you see the complying with like carrier responsibility for airlines or hotel check-in complying with local police regulations where always the travel document is mentioned in the law. How do you see that with also meeting data minimization and data privacy standards with the DTC? What do you, what do you see happening there? I'm a guy, I'm a civil servant, so I'm about the facts and and politicians about the visions.
So I'll, I'll, I'll I we totally understand. I'm a former civil servant.
I know, But lemme I will continue so we can then see different options. I think there are other options shown here, the PYD that would in future give, give good alternatives for using a passport for other situations where today passports are prescribed. So I think that's one way go perhaps it is thinkable that, that there are like intermediaries who unpack the DTC and and deliver the data when the intermediates are allowed to do processing of an entire DTC and are trusted to hand out that information. That could be a way out of this.
And, but then again, if it's currently in law, we have to find a way around them. Yeah, because that's a changing law isn't Technically this is not an issue.
No, it's all about regulation. It needs to be a derived credential and need to, to comply, it needs to be DTC attribute derived and otherwise it's not, it's not complying with the rules and regulations. Yeah. Currently, which is DTC is a package deal. So you can basically only work with, with, with DTCs if you're entitled to work with the whole thing.
Yeah, Yeah. Well the, the DTC is currently actually thought to be used in combination with the physical document. Yeah. So I think that's one, one also one major difference. Yes. When we talk about security and usability and co comparing, for example, to the pi and the pi currently it's mostly online use case PI is also not a travel document per se. It's not the, the intent.
So here again, we have these, those different credentials that can serve those purposes, but they need also some, some willingness, some political willingness to, to, so that they can be used in certain contexts that we are looking for. Yeah. In speaking of PID and yeah, political motivation. So right now, in, in 1995, IKO said that the best way to, to bind the presenter of the document to the authorized presenter of the document is through biometrics.
So when passports are issued, one of the, the key data data elements in data group two is the photo it's required, it's mandatory so that you know that the presenter of this document is the authorized presenter. I asked the commission, I don't know if anybody's here, why did you not do that with the pi? So you could bind the EU digital identity wallet to the user of it. They're not touching it. It's The third rail. There's an issue there. The pit and biometrics. Yes. Yeah.
This is, let's look at going back to you at the EUDI wallet briefly, what are your plans with DTC? And if you want to make a seamless passenger facilitation, ease of travel biometrics is the key very briefly, how do you see that?
What is, what are the plans? Yeah, so we, we are working as well from with expert and companies from the industry and, and I think Amad is here is a good representative to actually facilitate all those technical implementation regarding the biometric boarding for example. But on the same time we see actually regulation and also in the, in the EU where creation of gallery can be become problematic regarding the the data privacy. Yeah. And so yet again, we are at square one because basically we want to enter a square into, into rounds and we want to make every touch point here, right?
And, and yeah, I think that's, that's the current issue that that that we have. And You're working together on that with Exactly, yeah, yeah. To show use cases in the travel space. Yeah. So I think for the, what's really exciting I think is when I look at this initiative with what happened in Covid.
In Covid, there was a Europe initiative to produce this QR code, right? Yeah. And after years, there was 30 countries outside of Europe who use the technology, not only the standard, but the technological platform. I bet this would happen as well with VU wallet. So you'll see VU wallets in many more places than in Europe are supposed in the future. It's my personal debate.
And even if that is true in travel, what the companies will sell in travel, Expedia, booking British Airways, Lua Marriott, they will see travelers with European wallet, with Gira, with a Google wallet, with clear wallet, the uss with its me wallet from Belgium. So anyway, even if this initiative is taking a lot of scale, and I believe it'll, there will be a variety of wallets of digital nalytics out there and we'll have to support our companies who see customers from all over the world with all kind of wallets and all kind of technologies and protocols and what have you.
So the future will be diverse and, and rich, I think in that space, Dan. I see. Yeah. And on the topic of galleries and the universality of passports, and as you said, the the digital travel credential is the same for good and for evil as passports. So the legislation that the EU has on entry exit system for third country nationals coming that will go live this fall, says Article 15 says, do not use passports.
The photo of the third country national that's going to get into the gallery, as Vincen said, will be taken live by a border official of sufficient quality for automated facial recognition. So that's gonna go live this fall. Do not use passports, except if you cannot get a decent photo.
They, they, because of countries like the US where our photos are not taken live, we don't have a, a pi per se where the, the, the photo is associated with the individual, but it's not taken live by a trusted officials. Oh, it's taken by us. The practical issue, but very important, a lot of it is about, because you have to do that on the spot and a lot of it is about getting your data sent in advance, which is for iata a big program, part of the one id, which is the digitization of admissibility.
So you're ready to fly when you arrive and the airline has all the data that they need and nothing more. So could you elaborate on that briefly?
Sorry, before we go to the last round, We need to go back to the fundamentals of why is there a willingness to change in the airline industry And the willingness is make the journey better for people so that they don't have to queue and make it more efficient. And there are two key ways to go about that.
One, enable people to present and get ready to travel as their document verified before they go to the airport. And the second is, well, do you still need to queue after that at the airport? And as long as there is a need for a physical document check, well as long as there is a need for a check, the question is what's the fastest way to do this check? And so DTC and other form of digital credential are perfect for online and actually even much better they can be sent directly to the government that can do advanced risk assessment of individual travelers. So I think that's great.
There is a huge opportunity for P two P communication between the travelers and the government there. But then when we start to go into the physical space, if showing your real passport is faster than any digital version, then people are going to stick to showing the real passport. Exactly. And as long as they're also on top of that, mandated to have it with them.
So I guess there is a a real, This is a, a great bridge to The last huge and we consider Question, we have a minute and a half left, but I, one of the things that, and especially in, in the bubble we are here at EIC is we talk only digital. We don't talk anything physical anymore. But in this space we will be talking physical and that'll be the physical component, which is our, our mobile device, but also the booklet for quite a while. So I wanted to wrap up and ask you all, when do you see we will travel without the physical booklet?
Maybe the physical component of our device, but that is for, we have a little, we have a little, little bit of time. I'll just follow the line then. Decades.
Decades, yeah. As a backup. Same Thing with mobile driver's Licenses, it's gonna be wild. Yeah. Very strange that in IT authentication we move to multiple factors. Why here we want to reduce factors. I think it's going to be here for a long time. Yeah. So actually DTC type two and three are, have two factors with the physical components that don't include the booklet. So my answer would be it's gonna be used when it's gonna be easy to use your phone or a smart card as a second factor and 1.21 working on European digital identity wallet.
If it can be in your European digital identity wallet that you use quite often, it's most likely to be used shortly, probably three to five years than if it's in the 15th app on the page of your phone. France, When at scale, decades now. Where tomorrow, ah, let's see. Domestic travel in the country with brave enough to do it international in the group of region. Where is a better question?
I think, and you will see something happening I think in some places in the coming years, not the case. You have to differentiate between national, regional, and global. Yeah. Last but not least, I believe in step by step approach. I think starting with unregulated aspects and use cases, having then maybe a combination of the physical and the, the digital document and yeah, ultimately really maybe 10 years down the road, completely digital on the, on the mobile for the, for the Process. Because somebody's gonna have passport stamps then, you know, that are still using stamps.
Get Rid of the stamps. Yeah. No digital stamps yet.
Well, we are past our time. Thank you very much. As you can hear, this is a topic where the physical and the digital are still very much married for a while, but a lot is developing and this topic will return to be discussed. Thank you all very much.