ICAO pushes digital and contactless air travel at Montreal symposium

The International Civil Aviation Organization is promoting digital travel documents and biometric identity controls as a way to speed up processing at airports and border crossings. Industry representatives met at an ICAO symposium in Montreal to discuss how technologies that are already available or well advanced could be introduced worldwide.

According to the organization, the main obstacles are inconsistent rules, weak cooperation between authorities and high costs. Smaller and financially weaker states in particular risk falling behind on digitisation.

A further concern is security, including AI-assisted document forgery. ICAO is therefore favouring a step-by-step introduction and systems that are compatible across countries.