Paper passports could finally be on the way out. All that information about who you are, when and where you were born and what you look like, those pages with stamps testifying to your travels could go, replaced by an app, or stored in the digital wallet on your smartphone, but the payoff will be quicker processing at the immigration desk.
The world’s first trial of cross-border digital ID is currently underway. Since 28 August 2023, the Finnish Border Guard has been trialling their country’s Digital Travel Credentials (DTC) at Helsinki Airport.
It’s baby steps. To take part in the trial, passengers must download the FIN DTC pilot digital travel document app on their smartphone. They must also register with the Finnish police and finally, send the data from the app to the Finnish Border Guard between 36 and four hours before boarding their flight. The DTC is available only to Finnish citizens travelling on Finnair flights between Helsinki Airport and London, Edinburgh and Manchester, and the pilot DTC project ends in February 2024. Travellers who are taking part in the pilot project still require a physical passport to enter and exit the UK.
Nor is it anything like tap-and-go. Passing through Finnish immigration with the DTC requires a photo, which is matched with the image stored on DTC servers. In that respect it’s not too different from Australia’s SmartGate processing, which compares an image captured at the gate with the digitised photograph stored on a chip embedded in Australia’s ePassports and other similar national passports. However it has the potential to speed up border control processing around the globe, just as SmartGate processing has done away with those long queues at the immigration desk.
Other digital passport initiatives
Singapore will soon be using biometric data to streamline processing through Changi Airport, set to be introduced in the first half of 2024. Departing travellers will be able to speed through check-in, bag drop, immigration and boarding with biometrics used to authenticate their identity rather than a physical passport. Exactly how that biometric data is going to be captured in the first place has yet to be revealed.
In Europe, the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI) is expected to be made available to 80 per cent of all EU citizens by 2030. The EUDI is a digitised form of ID that will give the holder access to public and private online services all over Europe, and this could also include cross-border travel within the EU. If that were to happen, and if the EU allows Australian passport holders to be included in such a scheme, it would be an advantage for long-stay travellers from Australia who are hopping around Europe, entering and leaving the Schengen zone to spend time in a country outside the zone. At the moment, those visitors must have their passport stamped each time they leave the zone or they might run foul of the regulation that allows non-Schengen residents to remain in the zone for just 90 days in any six-month period. Passports are not always stamped when travellers leave the zone, but a digital passport would quickly confirm how long a traveller had spent on previous visits to the Schengen zone.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade flirted briefly with the idea of a digital passport back in 2015. Under the concept, a traveller’s identity and biometric data would be stored in the cloud, eliminating the need for physical passports. The Australian and New Zealand governments discussed the proposal, with travel between the two countries as a first step, but the trans-Tasman digital passport stalled, partly due to security concerns and technical problems.
The pros and cons
E-visas have made the visa application process speedier and smoother, and digital passports would accelerate visa applications further. Instead of a printed visa, an email or a PDF held on your smartphone, an e-visa could be transmitted direct to your digital passport.
Australians report around 40,000 passports lost or stolen each year. While a digital ID can’t get lost, a smartphone can – or be stolen. Once that happens there is no easy way of reclaiming your identity short of buying another phone. A digital ID also makes it easier for the government to track your movements, yet another invasion of privacy.
Would digital passports mean cheaper passports?
And give up a revenue stream that earns the Australian Government several hundred million dollars per year? Adjusted annually for inflation? Don’t even think about it. The digital passport will still need to be updated because that image of a youthful you from five or 10 years back is no longer an accurate representation, and that update is an opportunity for our federal government to insert its hand into your pocket.
