Is this the future of travel?
We’re all too familiar with passport-related drama before or during a holiday. First up, there’s the traumatic scenario of not remembering where you put it in the house—made all the more stressful when you need to leave to catch your flight within the next five minutes. Then there’s the worry that you’ve even packed it at all; splaying the contents of your hand luggage on the floor of the airport like a lunatic, only to find that it’s been in your back pocket all along. And I won’t even get started on keeping it safe throughout the trip, particularly if said trip involves, ahem, a lot of booze. Anyway, I digress.
All that stress could be a thing of the past. Yes, as of next year, Eurostar is planning to create a passport-less experience. From March 2021, they hope to allow travellers to simply upload a selfie, along with a copy of their passport, when they purchase their tickets. Eurostar will then use facial recognition technology on the day of their trip to allow passengers to board.
This would open up the possibility of trips between the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with no passport necessary. It will also help to reduce those nasty queues we’ve all faced at stations. And, of course, by making the trip completely document-free and contactless, there’s a drastically reduced number of things to misplace on the way. Which is always helpful.
Once everyone decides to take up travelling again (remember those things called holidays?!), the new initiative also has the perk of limiting the contact between customers and staff. With the need to reduce the spread of germs, this can only be a good thing.
Featured image: Pixabay