TTD considering facial recognition technology to prevent middlemen from cheating devotees out of their money

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) has decided to take several steps in the interest of pilgrims visiting the Venkateswara temple in Tirumala to ensure transparency in booking of darshan tickets and accommodation and to curb the menace of middlemen.

The temple management committee is considering introducing facial recognition and integrating Aadhaar numbers for further authentication and stringent verification of devotees’ identities.

The TTD’s IT wing, on the directions of Executive Officer J. Shyamala Rao, conducted an in-depth analysis of the last few years’ data on online and offline bookings of darshan tickets and accommodation.The data revealed widespread exploitation of devotees by middlemen.

In the current booking category at Tirumala, 110 rooms were found to have been booked on the same mobile number. Also, 807 room bookings were made on the same mobile number and 926 online bookings were made on a single email ID.

TTD IT officials also identified 1,279 dip registrations using the same mobile number in a year, besides 48 dip registrations under one email ID during the same period.

To prevent fraudulent activities and bring more transparency into the system, the TTD has blocked mobile numbers, email IDs and identity documents used for illegal bulk bookings.