January 21, 2026 l Business Mirror
Without realizing it you probably have been using biometrics in you daily life for a while now. If you have a smart phone or laptop, a camera is used for facial recognition to open the device.
Other options include using your fingerprint or your iris. In the office, door access by a fingerprint pad not only provides security but also records other details such as time of entry for use in attendance records and also maps out the different areas you have been to in the facility. Banks also use biometrics for online accounts and other banking transactions. Oh, but there are a myriad of possibilities!
If you have applied for a Schengen, UK or US visa, you had to undergo biometrics where your fingerprints and face with different angles including that from a typical CCTV camera collects all that data, tied into your machine readable passport. Even airlines keep details of your passport, your flight bookings, frequent flyer miles, who you travel with, when you travel and your preferences.
Your social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok know the topics that interest you the most, your most active times, your friends, who you follow, who your family and friends are, enabling them to feed you the right ads and contents at the most appropriate time! The different types of apps you use are also able to keep track of what you are doing, what you are taking photos and videos of, what you are buying, the payments you make, where you are going, and who you are talking to.
I recently travelled to the UK, and had never been there before so I was quite anxious as to how the immigration and customs procedures would be. Of course, I had to get a visa and undergo biometrics by filling up an exhaustive application form, submit a number of requirements and pay various fees. I finally got my passport back with the UK visa so I booked my ticket online with Cathay Pacific and ready to go!
This is where I saw what biometrics can do. When I arrived at the Cathay Pacific counter to check in, they did not ask for my electronic ticket or my booking, they only asked for my passport! I was informed I had to pay for my travel tax, which had a longer line of people than the airline counter. Why can’t that be included when you pay for the ticket? Oh, well, that is a column for another day.
Going back to the airline counter after paying for the travel tax, I was given my physical boarding passes for the flight to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to London with my luggage checked in through to London. I went through the whole Terminal 3 without a single person asking me for my UK visa. Upon arrival in Hong Kong for transit passengers, the only thing I needed was my boarding pass and go through a security check, with unmanned counters that had a scanner for the boarding pass bar code and a camera where you had to look and center your face.
It was only at London Heathrow Airport that an Immigration Officer asked for my passport and put an arrival stamp on my UK visa. Leaving the UK on my flight home was even quicker! After getting my boarding passes in the airline counter, we only had to go through a security check and unmanned counters scanning the bar code in our boarding pass and looking at the camera! The only time my passport was stamped was upon arrival at immigration in Terminal 3.
It looks like your biometrics, passport, plane tickets, visa and other documents are now all tied in and secured, allowing for more mobility and ease of travel. Hopefully, this will deter the movement of criminals, terrorists and illegal aliens!
***The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX. For comments, email georgechuaph@yahoo.com. Photo is from Pinterest.