12 August 2018
A growing number of clients have adopted the use of passport and drivers licence scanners at the Front Desk, and elsewhere. They provide a convenient, and accurate way to read and store identity information from passports as well as most drivers licences and identity cards.
Our preferred reader is the ARH ePassport reader, although we also support 3M readers. 3M, by the way, appears to have sold the section of the company that sells their readers. The reader is attached to a workstation at the Front Desk, and passports are read on command from GuestCentrrix. They are available across all 3 PMS versions that we provide – GuestCentrix PMS, GuestCentrix Hotel.Web, and GuestCentrix Hostel. Web.
Operation is simple. In the Check In screen, or elsewhere, there is a button to read the passport or identity document. Put the document in the reader, then click the button, and the reader will scan the document. For a passport it will read the Passport number, the holders name, age, nationality, and photo. The program lookup the passport (or other) number in the Guest profile database to see if that document has been presented before and that the name matches. If it has been used before then GuestCentrix will attach that Guest profile to the booking. All details, including the holder’s photo (if present) are then stored with the guest profile.
The benefits are that guest details are recorded accurately and quickly, providing a good identification of the guest. None of the identity information need be recorded on paper, so there are no issues around the privacy of that information.
