Sharjah Airport authority is on the final phase of the biometric technology that uses facial recognition

Sheikh Faisal bin Saoud Al Qassimi, director of Sharjah Airport Authority, told stated that 50 per cent of the facial recognition project has been completed and it is in the final phase of integration with the immigration and airline systems. Face recognition can be rolled out in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The UAE airports have been making major investments to update their systems and introduce technologies that make travel smoother, seamless, and touchless.

In November 2022, Abu Dhabi Airports announced that it was gearing up to launch new technology that would use passengers’ facial features as passports. The technology would be rolled out gradually, and its first phase was being tested at the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport.

In 2022, Sharjah Airport’s passenger traffic grew 84.73 per cent to over 13 million passengers, reaching closer to the pre-pandemic level of 13.6 million in 2019. Meanwhile, aircraft movement also experienced an increase of 51.69 per cent to 87,495 flights in 2022, as compared to 57,679 by the end of 2021.