Ryanair asks some customers for facial scans before they are allowed to fly

The Noyb Foundation has filed a complaint about the airline Ryanair, which requires certain customers to have a scan of their face before they are allowed to fly. Ryanair says this is to ‘verify contact details’, according to the Noyb announcement.

A Spanish woman was faced with this situation: Ryanair gave her the choice of going through the process online or reporting to the airline’s check-in desk at least two hours before takeoff. She also had to pay 0.35 euros for the online check. Ryanair only does this with travel agencies that resell its bookings. Customers who go directly to Ryanair will not have to deal with this.

In the actual complaint, which has been filed with the Spanish data protection authority, provides some more details. It quotes Ryanair and states that these third parties sometimes do not actually have permission to sell Ryanair tickets. Customers who do book via these channels are asked to provide their booking number, name, passport or identity card and real-time video of their face. Customers are not given much more explanation.

Noyb states that the customer is not sufficiently informed of the need to provide this biometric data and therefore it does not comply with the GDPR. The foundation accuses Ryanair of using this additional hurdle only to discourage customers from booking their flights with a party other than Ryanair. The foundation also points out that Ryanair has tried to take online travel agencies to court in the past to ban them from offering its flights. Noyb estimates that Ryanair could be fined up to 192 million euros.