There is No Seamless Travel When You Have to Evacuate – Editorial

For the past few years, the travel industry, along with the ID and secure document community have been promoting the idea that borders can be made frictionless. And to be fair, many parts of that vision are working.

At Helsinki Airport, Finland’s ID Centre has been piloting the ICAO-aligned Digital Travel Credential (DTC) concept and has shown that as long as there is robust live biometric capture, DTCs can support faster border crossings.

Across European borders, the move is clearly towards electronic ID verification for travel and a variety of other services. Indeed, eIDAS 2.0 requires each EU member state to offer a national digital identity wallet by end 2026, with DTCs frequently mentioned as one of its benefits.