Most Travellers Want a Digital Passport. That Does Not Make One Universal

The passport people most want to use may be the one they never take out of a pocket. A phone could share verified identity data before departure, a face could open the next checkpoint, and the familiar booklet could stay safely tucked away.

That prospect has considerable appeal. In results released on 28 October 2026, the International Air Transport Association's Global Passenger Survey found that 84% of respondents were interested in using a digital passport for online check-in instead of a physical one. It also found that 58% had encountered biometrics somewhere in an airport journey during the previous 12 months.

The survey covered more than 10,000 respondents in over 200 countries. It records a clear preference, but it does not create a travel document, change an entry rule or show that a digital credential is accepted on a particular journey. The overlooked question is therefore not whether travellers like the idea. It is what they can actually rely on when they travel.

Interest is Not the Same as Availability

The survey's most striking figures sit beside an important warning. While 84% expressed interest in a digital passport for check-in, 43% said immigration requirements had discouraged them from visiting a destination. Among that second group, complexity was the most frequently cited problem.

Those answers describe two different layers of travel. Check-in is an airline process. Permission to enter, leave or transit is determined by governments. A smoother airline identity check cannot by itself change a passport-validity rule, a visa requirement or the evidence a border authority demands.

Independent aviation-industry coverage of the survey reported that technical trials have already demonstrated digital-credential journeys, while regulatory frameworks remain a constraint. That gap explains why a system may work at one airline or airport touchpoint without becoming a universal substitute for the physical passport.

It also explains why “digital passport” should not be treated as a general name for any passport information stored on a phone. A photograph of a passport page, a saved PDF and an official digital travel credential do not have the same authority or security.

What a Digital Travel Credential Actually Is

The International Civil Aviation Organization uses the term Digital Travel Credential, or DTC, for a digital representation of travel-document data that remains cryptographically linked to the issuing authority. Its technical guidance on Digital Travel Credentials describes a virtual component containing the passport data and a physical component used to authenticate it.

That definition matters because trust does not come from the screen on which the information appears. It comes from the ability to verify that the data was issued by the responsible authority, has not been altered and belongs to the person presenting it.

For the traveller, this means an official credential cannot be improvised. Scanning a passport into an ordinary wallet app does not turn the scan into a DTC. Nor does a face stored for one airline necessarily become usable by another airline, airport or border authority. Issuance and acceptance must both be supported.

The credential also starts with the same identity foundations as a physical document: authoritative personal data, a verified link to its holder and a facial image suitable for official identification. Digitising the journey changes how those elements may be presented and checked. It does not make their quality irrelevant.

Why the Physical Passport Still Matters

ICAO's guidance says travellers will continue to require physical passports for many years, both because national rules still demand them and because they provide a fallback. Different DTC models may depend on the existing electronic passport in different ways, and real deployments will not all reach the same stage at once.

That creates a period of coexistence rather than a single global switch. A traveller may use a digital identity at check-in, a face at security and the physical booklet at border control. On another route, every identity check may still begin with the booklet. A connection through a third country can add yet another set of rules.

The safest preparation is therefore route-specific. Before departure, establish three things:

1. Which Physical Document is Required? Check the Rules for Nationality, Destination, Transit Points and the Document's Remaining Validity.
2. Which Digital Process is Officially Available? Confirm Eligibility Through the Issuing Authority, Airline, Airport or Border Agency Running It. Do Not Assume That a Trial or Service at One Checkpoint Applies to the Full Journey.
3. Which Image is Being Requested? a Passport Portrait, an Enrolment Selfie and a Live Image at a Gate Serve Different Purposes. Use the Capture Method Specified for That Particular Step Rather Than Substituting One Image for Another.

These checks are especially important when renewing a passport. The issuing country and document type still determine the photograph's dimensions, framing, background, recency and submission method. A future digital credential may carry the portrait data forward, but the original document application must first satisfy the authority's current requirements.

Convenience Does Not Remove Consent or Caution

The survey also found that 78% of respondents would share biometric information to avoid repeatedly showing a passport or boarding pass. At the same time, its leading biometric concerns were data breaches, sharing with other organisations and uncertainty about how information is handled.

Those results are not contradictory. People can value a faster journey and still want to know who receives their data, for what purpose and for how long. A genuine official process should identify the operator and explain the role of consent, storage and verification. Travellers should be wary of unofficial services that ask for passport data or facial images while imitating the language of digital travel.

Convenience should also remain optional where the authority says it is optional. A passenger who cannot or does not wish to use a biometric route still needs accurate information about the conventional document path. Digital inclusion is not achieved by making the physical route mysterious.

The Future Will Arrive One Route at a Time

IATA's survey shows that demand is no longer the main obstacle. Travellers are interested in using digital passports and many are already comfortable with biometric checkpoints. The slower work is making credentials interoperable, setting legal rules and ensuring that every organisation in a journey can verify what it receives.

Until that work produces broad acceptance, a digital travel option should be read literally: an option available for a named person, document, operator and route. It is not evidence that the passport booklet, its application or its photograph has become obsolete.

The appealing future is a journey with fewer repeated checks. The dependable present is knowing which document each part of the journey still requires—and preparing that document correctly before leaving home.