In an increasingly globalized world, where travel is on the rise for both tourism and business purposes, airports and border controls are faced with the challenge of managing the constant flow of passengers efficiently, while taking strict security measures.
For example, Mexico recorded more than 119 million passengers, of which 57.9 million were international travelers, an increase of 5.8% over the previous year, according to data from the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC). Its main airport, Mexico City International Airport (AICM), handled 45 million passengers, making it the second busiest in Latin America, behind only Bogota’s El Dorado airport, which is closer to 46 million passengers. For Colombia it has been a record year, with record totals of 56.5 million visitors, representing a 14.3% increase over 2023. International flights brought in 23.2 million visitors, almost 18% more than last year. This trend will continue to rise, since according to Civil Aeronautics data, Colombia is expected to break the air traffic record again in 2025, with more than 60 million passengers, of which 7.5 million will be non-resident visitors.
Another example is found in Brazil, where civil aviation has also shown record figures with more than 118 million passengers transported in 2024, of which almost 25 million corresponded to international flights. However, in this context of increasing travelers, there are also new challenges and threats that authorities and airports must deal with. Criminals see an opportunity in the massive volume of visitors, which makes traditional manual verification methods insufficient. As a result, cases of attempted fraud and impersonation at border controls are becoming increasingly common. In the case of Colombia, according to Migration, in 2024 the number of cases of cancelled false identity cards and irregular passports detected at borders increased by 232% over the previous year.
To address this problem, airports must rely on a robust biometrics solution that strengthens and secures the verification and identification of individuals based on their unique traits, whether fingerprint or face. Using this system not only helps mitigate the risks of identity fraud caused by human error in the traditional manual inspection methodology, but also greatly streamlines the verification processes, avoiding congestion and long lines at checkpoints. This, for example, will be essential for the United States in the run-up to the World Cup soccer tournament, an event that will attract millions of travelers in just a few weeks, so identity authentication at source should be encouraged.
Airport authorities can rely on Identy.io’s identity verification solutions, which thanks to its proprietary touchless and liveness biometric facial or fingerprint technology verifies that it is really the user in a way that is virtually impossible to forge.
The advantage of this innovative technology is that it is mobile-first, the whole process from identity data onboarding to biometric verification is performed from the user’s cell phone. In addition, this can be integrated with the admittance request systems of select countries so that the authentication process can be performed prior to the arrival of the checkpoints with the confidence of the Identy.io solution, saving queues at the access control points.
Identy.io’s solutions only need a cell phone, without requiring the latest generation terminals, only that they have a camera and flash, to perform the verification. This means huge cost savings for airports and other border control points as they do not need to implement additional hardware such as kiosks with cameras and fingerprint sensors for biometric identification, nor software for its management. In addition, unlike other alternatives in the market, Identy.io solutions store all the user’s information in their own cell phone, avoiding the need to exchange information with cloud servers, which in turn reduces the risk of theft or information leaks that can later be used for identity theft or the generation of personal documentation -passports, for example- with stolen information.
Identy.io solutions comply with the highest security standards, such as those proposed by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), as well as the ISO 30107-3 standard on liveness, which guarantees the security and accuracy of its portfolio of biometric identity management applications.
With the implementation of these robust biometrics solutions, airports and border controls will be able to cope with the continuous and increasing flow of passengers, avoiding possible fraud cases that go unnoticed with manual inspections, while saving costs as they do not need to invest in additional hardware, since everything can be done from the cell phone.
