New Delhi:

Digi Yatra does not store passengers’ personally identifiable information and personal data of Indian users is safe and secure, the Digi Yatra Foundation said on Friday amid ongoing concerns over user data privacy.

“Digi Yatra technology infrastructure is being expanded with plans to expand coverage from 15 airports to 28 airports by the end of April 2024,” the foundation said in a detailed statement.

Digi Yatra is based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) and provides contactless and seamless movement to passengers at various checkpoints at the airport.

We value your feedback and we are happy to announce that Digi Yatra is expanding to 28 airports in India!

We strengthen infrastructure construction to make your journey unforgettable and experience smoother travel.

Here’s everything you need to know about data privacy and security… pic.twitter.com/9tagakvhm4

— Digi Yatra Official (@DigiYatraOffice) April 19, 2024

The foundation emphasized that Digi Yatra is built on the concept of self-sovereign identity and said the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem (DYCE) never stores any ID credential data that has personally identifiable information anywhere in any central repository ( PIl).

“The Digi Yatra blockchain only has hash/key values ​​to check the integrity of the data,” said the application’s node agency, the Foundation.

Earlier this week, reports emerged that the company had been investigated over privacy concerns raised over data shared by Digi Yatra in connection with former supplier Dataevolve.

Suresh Khadakbhavi, CEO of the foundation, said Dataevolve has been completely removed from the Digi Yatra ecosystem.

The statement stated that the personal data of 3.3 million Indian users and the Digi Yatra application are absolutely safe, but neither the foundation nor any service provider has access to user data as all PIs are stored only in the Digi Yatra application on the user’s mobile device and are only User access.

It added that old data will remain on the user’s mobile device and credential data and travel history will also be deleted by default once the app is uninstalled or deleted.

Explaining the process, the foundation said that when a user shares their credentials and boarding pass to the origin airport (the verifier) ​​and passes through the airport, the data received by the airport will be purged from the airport system within 24 hours of the flight. /delete leave.

Digi Yatra has a mandatory CERT-In audit certificate, which is required for DYCE backbone, mobile applications and airport verification procedures as per Ministry of Civil Aviation policy.

According to the foundation, the latest audit was conducted in January, which clearly reaffirmed that Digi Yatra does not store PIl.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)