The final stage of the biometric technology, which will let users employ facial recognition, is being developed at Sharjah Airport.
According to Sharjah Airport Authority’s director, Sheikh Faisal bin Saoud Al Qassimi, the first half of the facial recognition project is finished, and it is currently undergoing integration with the airline and immigration systems. Face recognition is scheduled to go live in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The UAE airports have been making major investments to update their systems and introduce technologies that make travel smoother, seamless, and touchless.
In November 2022, Abu Dhabi Airports announced that it was gearing up to launch new technology that would use passengers’ facial features as passports. The technology would be rolled out gradually, and its first phase was being tested at the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport.
The number of passengers passing through Sharjah Airport increased by 84.73 percent to more than 13 million in 2022, approaching the pre-pandemic high of 13.6 million in 2019. In the meantime, the number of flights increased by 51.69 percent, from 57,679 at the end of 2021 to 87,495 in 2022.
