Air Canada passengers traveling through Toronto Pearson International Airport can now enroll via the airline’s mobile app to use a new facial verification gate. This gate is part of a pilot program featuring four biometric e-gates designed to expedite boarding procedures at the airport.
Among these, one gate serves domestic travelers who opt in through Air Canada’s app before arrival at the gate. The system captures a live facial image which is compared to the passenger’s identity record in the airline’s enrollment gallery, allowing successful matches to replace the need to present passports and boarding passes. Three additional gates are
available for passengers traveling to the United States through Toronto Pearson’s transborder area.
Technology Providers and System Integration
The biometric gates installed for this pilot are supplied by Dormakaba. Middleware that links the gates to the identity management systems is provided through collaboration between Airsphere and SITA. Air Canada is responsible for the domestic passenger enrollment software and manages the identity gallery that supports the facial verification process.
Pilot Structure and Participation
The pilot separates domestic and US-bound passenger processing. For US-bound travelers, American border preclearance at Toronto Pearson captures the traveler’s image as part of immigration formalities. The transborder biometric gates use those images to verify identity at
boarding without requiring advance enrollment via the app. Participation in the program is voluntary, and traditional document checks remain accessible for all passengers.
Toronto Pearson is monitoring pilot metrics including adoption rates, processing times, passenger throughput, and customer satisfaction as part of its evaluation.
Passenger Volume and Airport Modernization Context
Toronto Pearson currently processes approximately 47 million passengers annually. The airport projects passenger volume will grow to 65 million by the early 2030s. This pilot forms part of a broader modernization strategy emphasizing digital identity and automated processing to accommodate future increases in traveler numbers.
Air Canada’s initiative builds on a previous mobile-based identity pilot and
complements other biometric boarding deployments in Canada, such as the selfie onboarding program implemented at Calgary Airport. The current pilot remains focused exclusively on the boarding process and demonstrates the integration of mobile app enrollment with existing identity records to facilitate biometric verification at automated gates.
