The Commission of the European Union has said that the Europeans have shown a positive attitude towards the digitalisation of travel documents and facilitation of travel.
Such a statement from the Commission was made following the publication of the Special Eurobarometer.
According to the newly published data of the Eurobarometer survey, most Europeans consider the digitalisation of travel documents an important step to accelerate border procedures, increase security, as well as facilitate travelling to or outside the Schengen Area.
When it comes to travelling to or outside the Schengen Area, 33 per cent of the Europeans participating in the survey said that it is very important for them to go through the border procedures faster, thus supporting the digitalisation of documents.
Moreover, 45 per cent of the respondents said that it is very important for them that there is increased border security.
In addition, 66 per cent of the Europeans who took part in the survey said that they would prefer to have one single application for a Schengen visa at the EU level instead of one application for every Member State.
On the other hand, 33 per cent would prefer to have an application for every Member State that they would download depending on the country they are travelling to or from.
Data from the survey further show that even though 45 per cent of Europeans spontaneously stated that they had not experienced any problem travelling to or outside the Area in the last three years, the theft or loss of their passport or ID card is perceived as the most serious problems one can encounter while travelling.
For this reason, it has been perceived that they support the digitalisation of travel documents.
Another percentage of Europeans were worried about their personal data being shared and security threats due to insufficient human resources.
The survey also shows that most Europeans consider it very important to enhance cooperation between the EU and its Member States and accelerate border procedures when it comes to travelling to or outside the Schengen Area.
“As a matter of fact, 87 per cent of Europeans support the increase of the cooperation between the EU and the Member States to enhance border security to or outside the Schengen area, including 47 per cent who favour this idea. 77 per cent of Europeans support the idea of the EU taking actions to mitigate obstacles to travel to or outside the Schengen area.” EU Commission
In addition to the above-mentioned, the majority of Europeans said they own a fit device for this purpose. Around 80 per cent of Europeans report having a mobile device that can be used to download the app to store their travel documents.
When asked about technical skills, Europeans do not think that it will be hard to navigate the app holding their digital travel documents.
