Congratulations UAE, Dubai airport and Emirates for a big first that many of us in the geeky tech industry have forecasted for years, decades even. The world's first mobile passport is now operational in the UAE. Dubai's Terminal 3 and initially Emirates Airline will allow passengers to use a digital passport on a smartphone instead of showing a physical printed passport. Story was reported in Gulf News today. Note that the UAE was also the world's first country to issue national driver's licences onto mobile phones a few years ago and we celebrated that milestone here on this blog where I reminded readers, the passport will be next. So if you thought digital money, identity, privacy, mobile wallets etc will be huge - think again. Now that even passports go onto mobile, it will be enormous. Bigger than you thought.
(PS a bit of pro tip frequent traveller advice: make sure you still carry your physical passport because at this point only one airport does this - so on your return flight, you will still need the old paper based passport for now, haha.. Lets see who becomes the second airport to offer this facility and will there be direct flights so someone could do a round trip between those two locations)
Since USA did not allow traveler to bring phone and notebook to the plane anymore, you can cross out USA.
Posted by: Abdul Muis | June 08, 2017 at 02:02 PM
Considering that in many countries this will never happen for very profound security concerns, I'll hold my breath...
Posted by: Tester | June 08, 2017 at 03:04 PM
@Tester
"Considering that in many countries this will never happen for very profound security concerns, I'll hold my breath..."
Think about it. The Passport supplies digitally signed biometric data that identifies the bearer, e.g., finger print and iris scan (or whatever). The digital passport is linked to a mobile phone that can be disabled the moment it is stolen or otherwise retracted.
It can be reissued immediately when needed and might even be linked to a certain trip or together with a visum.
Many countries require citizens to be able to ID themselves. This would be a convenient way to do it.
Posted by: Winter | June 08, 2017 at 04:18 PM
It will be interesting seeing which country is next.
Posted by: Wayne Borean | June 08, 2017 at 09:51 PM