BER Biometrics: New free digital offer for interested travel

A further digital service is now available to passengers at BER. By way of BER Biometrics, BER Airport is offering all interested travellers from Terminal 1 the opportunity to navigate various departure stations using facial recognition and, therefore, without having to show their boarding pass. This includes printing baggage labels at selected self-service machines, use of the BER Runway with an extended time slot and access to the BER Tegel Lounge after prior booking.

BER Biometrics is a voluntary and free service for interested passengers aged 16 and over. For the airport company, BER Biometrics is another building block towards a smart airport of the future.

How BER Biometrics works

• The offer can be booked from seven days before departure.
• To use BER Biometriecs, travellers must create a local profile in the App SmartDepart (IOS| Android) and upload a selfie.
• Access is gained by taking on-site pictures and matching them against the passenger’s selfie stored in the app.
• During the matching, no original image files are compared with each other, but only digitally created reference files to enable an assignment between the passenger on-site and the boarding pass holder / app user. 
• BER Biometrics includes an extended timeframe for BER Runway and enables contactless use of selected self-service machines for fast bag drop (printing baggage labels) and contactless access to the BER Lounge Tegel (after prior booking for a fee at lounge.berlin-airport.de).
• The pictures taken at BER shall be deleted after the flight. The user data stored independently when creating the profile and the uploaded selfie remain in the app, but can be managed independently by the user at any time.

BER Biometrics replaces the presentation but not the carrying of the boarding pass and other official travel documents (passport and identity card etc.). All products integrated in BER Biometrics at BER Airport (Fast Bag Drop, BER Runway, lounges) can still be used without BER Biometrics. To realise the technical aspects of the project, including software solutions, the airport company worked with its partner company, AirSphere, whose boarding pass control software is already in use at BER.

For more information about BER Biometrics visit biometrics.berlin-airport.de

The information published on this page corresponds to the status on the date of publication or update.