Reading the travel document at airline online check-in

What airlines ask of document reading at check-in

The usual picture of identity verification is a bank onboarding a customer. An airline has a different need. It does not need to decide whether a person is trustworthy. It needs the details of the travel document to be right: the name as printed, the date of birth, the document number, the country that issued it and the date it expires. A typing slip in a check-in form is one way for a passenger to arrive at the gate with the wrong data on file. The airline then fixes it by hand, with a queue behind it.

The sensible answer is to take the data from the document rather than from the passenger's fingers. A passenger photographs the page with the photograph and the machine-readable lines, the system reads it, and the airline's check-in form is filled from the document. The European rules on advance passenger information describe exactly this direction, and they say how far it should go: the passenger data collected from the document is data about the document, nothing more.

• Read the printed text and the machine-readable lines of a passport or national ID card.
• Check the document for signs of fraud while it is being read.
• Let the passenger do it on a phone during online check-in.
• Choose the steps in a scenario, down to the document alone.
• Show the service in the passenger's language, one of 90+ languages.

The flow

1. Booking. The passenger has a booking in the airline's own system and opens online check-in. The airline's system holds the booking reference. This part is yours.
2. Start. Your backend creates a session and opens the web widget. A passenger who starts on a desktop can finish on a phone with a QR code.
3. Questionnaire. Where the airline wants it, the questionnaire collects custom fields, such as the booking reference, before the KYC starts.
4. Document. The passenger photographs a passport or national ID card. The printed text and the machine-readable lines, with their checksum, are read, and the document is checked for fraud.
5. Optional face step. An airline that also wants to confirm that the traveller is the holder adds a selfie and active liveness to the scenario. That step is a choice of the airline, not a requirement of the rules quoted below.
6. Result. Your system reads the session status or receives a webhook, fills the check-in form from the document and puts any passenger who needs help in front of an agent.
7. Manual route. Where automated reading is not technically possible, or while the transitional period in the rules allows a passenger to type the data in online, the airline collects the data manually and applies its own data verification techniques. This route sits outside the platform.
8. Transfer. The airline's own systems pass the passenger data on to the authorities in the way the rules require. The platform does not do this.
9. Record. Retention is a setting you choose per scenario, and erasure on request is available through the API.

Where this differs from the travel and hospitality page

The travel and hospitality page is about the guest who arrives at a hotel, and the short-term rentals page is about the host who lists. This page is about the passenger who boards. The question is not whether a person is who they claim, but whether a record of a travel document is accurate, and the weight falls on reading the document well. The face step, which matters for a bank, is secondary here and optional.

Modules used

• Document verification, including the machine-readable lines of the document.
• Scenario editor to choose the steps.
• Web SDK and widget with QR hand-off, in 90+ languages.
• Questionnaire for the booking reference.
• Face verification and liveness, when the airline adds them.
• REST API and webhooks.

Regulatory frame

One European Union text: Regulation (EU) 2025/12 of 19 December 2024 on the collection and transfer of advance passenger information, published in the Official Journal on 8 January 2025. It says it applies from the date two years after the date on which the router starts operations, as the Commission determines, with the exceptions it lists.

• Article 4(1) requires air carriers to collect the API data of each passenger on flights into the Union.
• Article 4(2) provides that the API data consist only of the listed data, which in points (a) to (d) are the surname and first names, the date of birth, sex and nationality, the type and number of the travel document and the three-letter code of its issuing country, and the date of expiry of its validity.
• Article 5(2) requires air carriers to collect the data in points (a) to (d) using automated means to collect the machine-readable data of the travel document, and, where they provide an online check-in process, to enable passengers to provide that data by automated means during it.
• It allows manual collection exceptionally, where the use of automated means is not technically possible. Article 5(4) adds that, during a transitional period, air carriers also make it possible for passengers to provide the data manually as part of the online check-in, using data verification techniques, and Article 5(6) empowers the Commission to end that period by a delegated act from four years after the router starts operations.
• Article 5(3) requires any automated means used to be reliable, secure and up to date, and requires the air carriers to ensure that the data are encrypted during the transfer from the passenger to the air carrier.
• Article 5(7) empowers the Commission to adopt delegated acts laying down detailed technical requirements and operational rules for automated collection, so this page does not claim that any tool meets those rules.
• Recital (11) says that the collection of the data by automated means should be strictly limited to the alphanumerical data contained in the travel document and should not lead to the collection of any biometric data from it.

This block describes the text, not our service. For information; not legal advice.

Sources

• Regulation (EU) 2025/12 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the collection and transfer of advance passenger information for enhancing and facilitating external border checks, Official Journal text, fetched 27 October 2026.

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