Boarding with an NFC implant

Experiment shows how implanted NFC chip could be used.

A man has boarded a SAS flight at Stockholm by using an NFC chip embedded in his hand.

Andreas Sjostrom, Vice President, Digital at Sogeti, a technology services company travelled from Stockholm Arlanda to Paris on SAS using just the NFC chip in his hand to replace his boarding pass.

It is just an experiment but it probably shows the future.

Mr Sjostrom explains what happened in his blog:

A few weeks ago I had an NFC chip implanted into my hand, just beneath the skin. While I am certainly not the first person to have an NFC implant, I am probably one of the first travelers to pass through Stockholm Arlanda airport, through security, at the lounge, and finally through the gate to the aircraft, using only the chip in my hand.

My NFC chip contains my Scandinavian Airlines EuroBonus member ID, and since the airport has NFC readers all the way from security to the gate, I can use the chip instead of ordinary boarding passes.

Watch the video:

Mr Sjostrom emphasises that it was just an experiment with no plans for actual implementation.

He says on his blog:

This is just an experiment with no plans of actual public implementation. SAS has provided NFC tags to EuroBonus Gold members for a long time. The tag contains only the EuroBonus ID, in an encrypted format. Only SAS can write valid EuroBonus ID data to NFC tags. When traveling, you are always required to provide a valid ID when requested.

N.B. Image credit: youtube.com

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Andreas Sjostrom

Sogeti