Star Alliance now using biometrics at Hamburg Airport

Allows contactless travel with facial recognition

Hamburg Airport is now using the the Star Alliance biometric face recognition system

That makes it the fourth airport to use the biometrics platform.

It was launched in November 2020 at Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna.

Participating passengers from Austrian, SWISS and Lufthansa can pass through security and boarding using only their facial biometrics – no boarding pass or smartphone.

The system is available to Miles & More participants who have agreed to the use of their biometric data during the travel process.

How it works

The system uses facial recognition to track passengers. It has to compare the live image of a passenger with details on its database.

Miles & More members can register for Star Alliance Biometrics at least 24 hours before their next Austrian, Lufthansa or SWISS flight.

Registration means capturing their biometrics and their passport details (with biometric information).

Once registered, passengers can use biometric access at all participating airports, meaning they can pass through the central security checkpoint and boarding gates A17 and C16 at Hamburg Airport without contact.

Their facial biometrics are captured by high definition cameras and compared with your stored image.

Any passengers with a COVID face mask do not need to remove the thing for the biometric checks to work.

If there is a positive match, the entrance opens automatically.  

The system compares the live image with the stored one

Enrollment – Register once, use multiple times

Miles & More members have the option to enrol in Star Alliance Biometrics. To enrol, passengers take a selfie, verify their identity by scanning their passport, and opt-in to the airlines and airports where they want to use the service. 

Passengers only need to enrol once and can then use their biometrics data multiple times at touchpoints of any participating airport whenever they travel with a Star Alliance member airline who has implemented Star Alliance Biometrics. 

Data privacy and security 

The system is based on capturing the facial biometrics of passengers. Star Alliance say personal data, such as photo and other identification details, are encrypted and safely stored within the platform. Storage of personal data is kept to a necessary minimum – for example, no passenger names are stored.

Star Alliance encrypts and stores the passenger profiles and data in a Microsoft Azure Cloud
hosted in Europe. The data is subject to and protected by EU privacy laws.

Airlines and airports will not have access to passenger biometric profile data.

Supplier

The Star Alliance Biometrics builds on NEC Corporation’s NEC I:Delight biometric and identity management platform software.

Here are full details about the Star alliance biometric system


N.B. Image credit: Lufthansa

Internet links

Star Alliance

Lufthansa (LH)

Nec I:Delight