Croatia, Finland and the Netherlands as well as Canada, received pilot projects for the development of digital passports on mobile phones, the ultimate goal of which is to use the latest technology to facilitate travel and improve the safety of passengers.

The digital travel document will enable citizens, for example, to announce their arrival in a country in advance, minimizing the time spent at border points, Croatian Jutarnji List said.

The project in Croatia is implemented by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Agency for Commercial Activity (AKD), in which they clarify that it is a large-scale project, in which development and numerous tests are expected, which is the reason. that the European Commission approved the financing in the amount of almost 2.3 million euros.

Croatian citizens have been using the electronic passport since 2009, the security of which is currently based on the verification of the authenticity of personal data in physical and electronic forms. This means that the digitized data stored on the passport chip is identical to the data printed on the paper passport. The exception is biometric data.

Digital travel documents digital passports on mobile phones

As explained in AKD, the pilot projects to be implemented by Croatia and Finland, as well as the Netherlands and Canada, aim to implement a digital travel document, the virtual component of which is linked to the electronic passport, ie. contains a partial copy of the person’s biographical and biometric data in the ePassport.

This will enable the identification of passengers based only on the virtual component of the digital travel document.

For the new digital passport, AKD will continue the development of the Certilia mobile application, which any citizen who has a valid ID card with a chip can use for digital identity confirmation.

For the purposes of the pilot project, AKD will enable the passport holder to create a digital travel document within the Certilia mobile application, which is a top-level electronic identification tool. As Certilia has all the prerequisites for a future EU digital wallet, it is logical for AKD to provide our citizens with a digital passport on a mobile device”, emphasizes Jure Sertic, director of AKD.

Could digital passports be the answer to airport delays?

For now, passengers involved in the trial will still have to carry their physical paper passports and undergo checks by border agents.

But in the long run, the aim is for people to not have to carry any documentation at all aside from their phones. Travellers could simply be identified using a photo of their face when they are boarding a plane or passing a security check.

It is hoped that these digital travel documents will make passing through a border much smoother and faster. Reducing the time of each individual check by even a small amount could cut down waiting times for passengers. digital passports on mobile phones

Does anybody in the world already use digital passports?

In 2021, Ukraine became the first country in the world to give the same legal status to digital passports as physical ones.

Using a phone app called Dila that is issued by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, users can see electronic versions of their documents. They can also generate QR codes that have essentially the same power as a passport.

Ukrainians have been able to use their digital passports in a range of situations such as confirming their identity at the post office, confirming their age or opening a bank account for a few years. But last year they were also recognised when travelling into the country by plane or train.

Poland and South Korea also use digital documentation on smartphones in similar ways and further pilot projects could soon be underway in the UK and US.