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Good practice Imported

Noi Bai Airport's Facial-Recognition Autogates Cut Hanoi Security Checks From Two Minutes to Three Seconds

Vietnam · Hanoi · See the Vietnam profile · See the Hanoi profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 46% 60/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

State-owned ACV replaced manual passport checks at Hanoi's Noi Bai Terminal 2 with biometric facial-recognition autogates on 19 December 2025, cutting security screening from 1-2 minutes to 1-3 seconds as capacity grew from 10 million to 15 million passengers a year.

1-2 min → 1-3 sec
Security screening time
10 million → 15 million passengers
Terminal 2 annual capacity
8,000-10,000
Daily travellers using automated biometric gates (by Aug 2026)
Noi Bai Airport's Facial-Recognition Autogates Cut Hanoi Security Checks From Two Minutes to Three Seconds

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV)
Period
2025-2026
Keywords
aviation, border management, digital identity, public administration

Context

On 19 December 2025, Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport switched on biometric facial-recognition autogates at the first security checkpoint of its newly expanded international Terminal 2, replacing manual passport checks, alongside a $184 million terminal expansion that raised Terminal 2's annual capacity from 10 million to 15 million passengers.

Activities

The autogates match a traveller's face to their passport or chip-embedded ID, part of a wider national rollout requiring biometric ID-card readers, facial-recognition devices and automated gates at all Vietnamese international airports, seaports and border crossings, building on the VNeID digital-identity platform.

Results

Security screening dropped from 1-2 minutes of manual inspection to 1-3 seconds. By August 2026, Noi Bai's domestic terminal had 12 biometric check-in kiosks handling 3,000-4,000 passengers a day, while 8,000-10,000 travellers a day cleared automated security and boarding gates using face biometrics, and immigration offices had issued more than 84,800 level-2 digital-ID accounts to foreign residents since July 2025.

Conclusions

Coverage from the airport operator, state media and independent biometrics trade press is consistent on the headline processing-time figures, but none constitutes an independent technical audit: no false-accept/false-reject rate, complaint volume or third-party accuracy assessment has been published, and use is currently limited to Vietnamese citizens with chip-embedded ID cards, aged 16 and over.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) operations team

Conditions for success

  • Integration with the national VNeID digital-identity platform
  • Chip-embedded national ID cards as a prerequisite
  • Large capital investment in terminal/gate infrastructure

Common failure modes

  • No false-accept/false-reject rate or independent accuracy assessment published; limited to citizens aged 16+ with chip ID

Commonly funded by

Digital Europe Programme

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Data sources

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