Using Another Person's ID to Board Aircraft, 12 Cases Detected Over 5 Years

"Strengthen Bio Authentication and Smart Air Ticket Systems"
Only 8.5% of Passengers Used One ID in the Last 5 Years

Over the past five years, there have been 12 cases of individuals caught using or attempting to use someone else's ID or boarding pass at airports under the jurisdiction of Korea Airports Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation).

According to data submitted by the Corporation to the office of Park Jeong-ha, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the People Power Party, from 2018 to September of this year, a total of 12 cases were detected where individuals used another person's ID to board flights.

The number of cases detected by year is ▲2018 (1 case) ▲2019 (1 case) ▲2020 (6 cases) ▲2021 (3 cases) ▲2022 (1 case).

All detected cases involved domestic flights; 5 cases were caught at the departure airport during boarding, while 7 cases were only detected after arriving at the actual destination.

Earlier in August, a man attempting to board a plane using someone else's ID was caught at the airport.

According to Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station, a man in his 20s, Mr. A, was caught at Gwangju Airport while checking in to board a flight to Jeju using a friend's ID, as airport staff found Mr. A's appearance suspicious compared to the ID photo.

At that time, Gwangju Airport, being a national key facility sharing facilities with a military airport, faced criticism for its lax security.

To prevent fraudulent boarding, there are calls to activate the use of the biometric authentication-only gate system called 'One ID.'

'One ID' is currently operated at domestic departure halls and boarding gates in 14 airports nationwide. For domestic flights, the cumulative number of users in the first half of this year was 29 million, with a total of 4 million registered users.

The Corporation invested 14.094 billion KRW from 2017 to last year to build the 'One ID' system. Maintenance and management costs over the past five years have amounted to approximately 2.328 billion KRW.

However, among the total 368.84 million domestic flight passengers over the past five years, only 8.5%, or about 31.44 million passengers, used 'One ID.'

Assemblyman Park stated, "If it is possible to board an aircraft using someone else's ID and boarding pass, irreversible accidents could occur," and emphasized, "Biometric authentication and smart boarding pass systems must be strengthened."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.