Travelers at Da Nang International Airport can now move from check-in through boarding using nothing but their smartphone. A dedicated priority lane opened on April 10, 2026, exclusively for passengers holding Level 2 accounts in Vietnam’s VNeID mobile identity application, eliminating the need to present a physical citizen identity card at any point in the domestic departure process.
VNeID is Vietnam’s official digital identity platform, operated by the Ministry of Public Security through the National Population Data Center. A Level 2 account requires in-person biometric enrollment at a police station and carries full legal equivalence to the physical Citizen Identity Card under Decree 59/2022/ND-CP. The biometric data captured at enrollment, facial photograph and fingerprints, is verified against a national database underpinned by NEC’s Automated Biometric Identification System, which covers more than 50 million citizens.
At the airport’s new priority lane, located on the second floor of the domestic departure terminal, the smartphone never actually leaves the passenger’s pocket. Instead, a passenger stands in a marked area and looks into a camera; the system matches their live face against the biometric record linked to their VNeID profile and clears them to proceed. The lane is open to passengers on Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air flights and is designed to serve frequent flyers who make the route regularly.
ACV Da Nang, the airport’s operator, describes the facility as the first in Vietnam to offer fully automated passenger processing from check-in through boarding. The broader automated journey includes self-service bag drop, self-check-in kiosks, auto gates, auto-boarding gates, and video call kiosks. Airport officials put the passenger experience plainly: “With just a smartphone, passengers can complete security checks and board planes without forgetting or losing documents.”
Level 2 VNeID accounts have been accepted for domestic air travel since May 2023, and biometric verification became the default at domestic airports from December 2025 following a government directive. The April 10 lane takes that national program a step further by creating a physically separate fast-track exclusively for VNeID users, rewarding digital enrollment with a measurably faster airport experience.
The deployment advances Vietnam’s goal of 100 percent digital ID coverage by 2026. Similar facial recognition rollouts have proceeded at other Vietnamese airports, and the national VNeID expansion has positioned the country’s aviation network as an active testing ground for mobile-first identity at scale.
Sources: VietnamNet, Vietnam+, Vietnam.vn
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By the Mobile ID World Editorial Team
