Digi Yatra has emerged as one of India’s most visible digital identity initiatives in aviation, but questions around facial recognition, personal data and privacy have remained part of the conversation around its adoption. Addressing these concerns at the GRC India AI Conclave 2026, hosted by Ampcus Cyber, Asit Kumar, CISO and Data Protection Officer, Digi Yatra Foundation, offered a straightforward explanation of the platform’s approach: Digi Yatra does not retain passengers’ personal credentials in its central ecosystem.
Kumar explained that privacy has been built into Digi Yatra’s architecture through a self-sovereign identity model, where the passenger remains the holder and controller of the digital credential. The credential is stored on the passenger’s own device rather than in a central database. The scale of Digi Yatra also highlights why its approach to identity and privacy has become significant. Launched in December 2022 at Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi airports, the platform is now live at 38 airports, with another 27 airports targeted by 2027.
More than 24 million people have downloaded the Digi Yatra app, while over 100 million passenger journeys have already been processed through the platform. Digi Yatra currently operates in 11 Indian languages, with plans to expand to all 22 scheduled Indian languages. The platform can also process a passenger through an airport checkpoint in approximately five seconds. These numbers put the privacy architecture of Digi Yatra at considerable scale, particularly as the platform expands across more airports and potentially towards international travellers.
“We Are Not Storing Any Data in the Central Ecosystem”
Explaining the fundamental design principle behind Digi Yatra, Kumar said the platform was designed to ensure that personal credentials do not become part of a central repository. “The three basic things that we talk about are seamless journey, privacy preserving and user control. In Digi Yatra, we are not storing any data in the central ecosystem that is known. Although there are some places where data is held, it is in the control of the user. That is called self-sovereign identity. So, privacy preserving is about the data that the user wishes to share, and with Digi Yatra, that is the control that the user has,” Kumar said.
According to Kumar, this architecture is intended to give passengers control over their identity rather than making the central platform the permanent custodian of their credentials. He explained that Digi Yatra follows a three-party model comprising the holder, issuer and verifier. The passenger is the holder of the identity, Digi Yatra acts as the issuer, and the airport environment performs verification when the passenger reaches the e-gate.
Passenger Remains the Holder of the Digital Identity
Kumar explained that the process begins with the creation of a digital identity from the passenger’s existing identity credentials. “In Digi Yatra, we give the Aadhaar number, we take the authentication of Aadhaar, we download the KYC, the picture is already there, we take a selfie, and if the selfie matches up to a certain extent, the Aadhaar photo is discarded. Your photograph becomes your digital identity and it is stamped by the signature which is done by the Digi Yatra ecosystem. That is the work of the issuer,” he said.
The important distinction, Kumar said, is what happens after that credential has been created “When it goes to the issuer, the only data goes to the passenger as it happens. The signing of the identity or the photograph is done and sent back to the holder, who retains that identity in his wallet. Now the issuer is free of this job. The issuer’s job has been done. When you go there, the data, till now, the issuer is not retaining any data. So are we. We are the issuers, we are not retaining any data,” Kumar added.
What Happens at the Airport When Using Digi Yatra?
The actual verification happens when the passenger reaches the airport gate. Kumar explained that the photograph captured at the e-gate is matched against the identity credential previously signed by the issuer. The system verifies whether the credential is genuine and whether it has been tampered with before allowing the passenger through. “The verification part is only done when you stand in front of the D-Gate. The photo is taken, the identity is sent to the airport and it is matched against that identity which the issuer has signed. If it matches at the threshold, the gate is opened. Data which stays at the airport is for a shorter time because it is purged shortly after the journey is taken,” he said. Kumar described this as an example of privacy by design, with self-sovereign identity and decentralised identifiers forming the foundation of the architecture.
A key component of this architecture is the use of verifiable credentials. Kumar explained that these credentials allow identity claims to be checked cryptographically without requiring the underlying identity information to be permanently stored with the verifier. “Verifiable credentials are the digital specifications of the claim provided by an identity or an individual, which can also be checked at runtime. It is cryptographically secure because they use signatures. If forgery happens, it rejects it. So it is instantly verifiable and it is user controlled because, as we say, the users themselves are in control of what data they have and what data they have to share,” Kumar said.
The model also creates a distinction between possessing an identity and verifying it. The passenger holds the credential, while the verifier checks whether it is authentic and has not been altered. Kumar said this approach can help address a weakness in conventional physical identity verification, where a document may be presented but there is no immediate mechanism to establish whether it is genuine.
“With the help of verifiable credentials, we generally have instant verification. That shows whether we can cross-check the identity that belongs to you and whether it has been maligned. The key benefits are enhanced security, reduced fraud through cryptographic verification and a decentralised architecture,” he said. Kumar also placed Digi Yatra within the wider evolution of digital identity, arguing that traditional password-based authentication is increasingly inadequate for modern digital environments.
“Digital identity matters because the traditional systems where we use passwords are not capable enough to challenge the modern needs of the systems and the technologies which are emerging. Password fatigue is also there, and data breaches expose billions of data annually,” he said. He pointed to growing demand for digital identity across multiple sectors, driven by both regulation and consumer expectations around privacy. Kumar cited a market estimate of $30 billion for digital identity by 2026, while approximately 5.2 billion users are expected to use digital identity services across sectors including financial services, healthcare, education and government.
Kumar also explained that the architecture separates the holder, issuer and verifier, allowing these entities to operate independently rather than placing identity control with a single central authority. “First by Aadhaar, all these three entities are supposed to work independent of each other. If any one of the system or entity goes down, the other two entities keep on working. So there is a decentralised architecture; there is no centralised control,” he said. This separation is central to Digi Yatra’s approach to identity management, particularly as the platform moves towards interoperability with other digital identity systems.
Digi Yatra Prepares for International Travellers
Digi Yatra is also expanding its work on verifiable credentials to support international identity documents. Kumar said the foundation has developed a verifiable credential mechanism for Type 2 passports, using the digitally signed information contained in the passport’s MRZ chip. “The MRZ chip is actually signed by ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and the public can directly provide it to certain registered organisations. We have got that, and we have done trials with this. We have done trials with IndiGo and the lifelines are going on as we are talking here,” Kumar said.
The objective is to create a digital identity mechanism that can work with international biometric standards and eventually support foreign travellers using the Digi Yatra ecosystem. DigiLocker Integration Could Expand Verifiable Credentials Another area Kumar highlighted was the potential integration of verifiable credentials with DigiLocker. “DigiLocker has 170 billion of data of users on board it. So the direct extraction or retrieving of those users with the verifiable credentials in the digital wallet of our amazing NBG account, that is going to have a major impact,” he said. The broader objective is to move towards an identity ecosystem where credentials can be securely issued, held and verified without requiring every organisation in the chain to maintain copies of the underlying personal information.
For Digi Yatra, the challenge ahead is therefore not only scaling the number of airports and passengers. It is also demonstrating that digital identity can operate at national scale without turning personal credentials into a centralised data repository. As Kumar’s remarks at the GRC India AI Conclave highlighted, the core proposition is built around self-sovereign identity, selective disclosure, cryptographic verification and user control.
