Sailing Towards Innovation: Lessons in Digital Identity

Working in digital identity has a funny side effect: you start noticing identity technology everywhere – even on holiday.

Condatis QA engineer, Caol Hirvonen recently took two cruises with different operators, and while logging into one of the ship’s guest portals, he spotted something that most travellers wouldn’t think twice about: the portal was running in Microsoft Azure B2C production mode. While a regular guest might just be grateful their Wi-Fi was working, to someone in digital identity, that was a small but telling glimpse into the ship’s digital infrastructure.

But the real “identity moment” came elsewhere – with something far more physical: the cruise card.

Every Cruise = One Card Per Passenger

If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you’ll recognise it instantly – the SeaPass, keycard, or cruise card. Every passenger receives one as they board. It’s your room key, your onboard wallet, your identity token, and your pass to embark and disembark at ports.

These cards are created fresh for every cruise for each passenger, complete with anything from your name, cabin number, trip duration, dining plan, and sometimes even your photo. Multiply that by 3,000 passengers, and you’re looking at thousands of plastic cards printed, used, and discarded on every voyage.

For someone immersed in digital identity, some thoughts come to mind.

1. Sustainability: A Sea of Plastic, On the Sea

Cruises sail through some of the most beautiful and fragile ecosystems on Earth – yet each voyage generates thousands of single-use plastic cards. In an era where sustainability is more than a buzzword, this feels jarringly outdated. The irony of transporting stacks of plastic on the very oceans plastic pollution is threatening isn’t lost on anyone – especially those attuned to how digital solutions can reduce waste.

2. Opportunity: Personalising Experiences using travellers preferences

Cruise lines often emphasise luxury, loyalty, and personalisation – but each time you return, it’s like starting from scratch.

Could cruise companies use past transactional history to surprise and delight returning guests? Imagine arriving to find your favourite cocktail waiting, or your shore excursion preferences already logged.

Here’s the challenge: GDPR and privacy regulations make storing this kind of personal data costly and complex. And rightly so. But this is where decentralized identity technology can shine, allowing travellers to hold their preferences digitally and share them using privacy respecting processes during their trip.

3. Immigration Security: Stickers Instead of Real-Time Status?

Another surprising insight came during the immigration process. On both cruises, once passengers had completed immigration checks at ports, staff applied a physical sticker to their cruise card to indicate they were cleared to reembark.

However, cruise security didn’t seem to have immediate digital visibility of who had or hadn’t cleared immigration – resulting in retrospective calls to cabins to recheck passengers. It’s an oddly manual and error-prone process when managing the movement of thousands of people across borders so regularly.

This is exactly the sort of inefficiency that reusable digital identity could solve. Imagine a world where a passenger’s immigration status could be digitally verified and checked in real time against a ships manifest, securely and without exposing sensitive data – reducing delays, confusion, and workload for staff and passengers alike.

A Blueprint from the Real World

In our Visitor Experience Platform case study, we explored how reusable credentials allow guests to own and share their preferences securely – without centralised systems holding sensitive data.

Now imagine cruise passengers using a similar system. Before boarding, they present a verifiable credential with their identity, preferences, and loyalty profile. The cruise line verifies it, tailors the experience, and doesn’t need to store that data long-term.

This credential could then:

• Speed up boarding (no repeated ID checks)
• Auto-link to cabin access and onboard purchases
• Extend to shore excursions and immigration processes
• Carry forward to future cruises and loyalty programmes

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