TMCnet News
'Air France trials fingerprint-based smartboarding system'(DMeurope Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Air France has started testing a new fingerprint-based boarding process it is calling "smartboarding" with 1,500 regular customers on its Paris-Amsterdam route. The personal smartboarding card uses biometrics, RFID and thermal printing to allow passengers to board when they wish through a special automated gate. Trial participants are given a smartcard holding their personal data, including the prints of their two index fingers. After booking their flight on the website, passengers check-in by inserting this smartcard into a kiosk which prints their boarding pass on the back using a thermal ink technology that can print 500 times on the same card. Finally, users have their fingerprints scanned and go through a gate to board the aircraft. Air France will trial this system until the end of the year before deciding whether to use it on more routes. (Distributed for DMeurope.com via M2 Communications Ltd (www.m2.com)) Copyright ? 2009 M2 Communications Ltd. |