Australia is planning to adopt a new contactless passenger identification system that would eliminate the need for passport scanners, paper landing cards, and manned immigration desks, the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection has announced.
The new system, which is set to be rolled out by 2020, will use facial recognition technology and fingerprint scanners to identify passengers as they pass through Australian airports. People arriving in the country would no longer be required to show their passports and desks fronted by immigration officers would be replaced by automated electronic stations.
The new process would go beyond the current SmartGate electronic border processing system currently in place at Australian airports, which matches the face of a passenger with the image stored in the microchip of their e-passport.
The government will pilot a version of the system in July at Canberra Airport, which offers limited flights to Singapore and Wellington. It would be introduced at Sydney and Melbourne airports in November, with the rollout hoping to completed by March 2019.
Under the early forms of the new biometric technology, passengers could possibly be filtered through a corridor, rather than through gates.
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It is unclear exactly how the new contactless system would work. In fact, even the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection seems unsure how its new system will actually function.
“The department is asking tenderers to provide innovative solutions to allow arriving travellers to self-process,” an immigration spokeswoman told Fairfax Media. “The department has not therefore defined the specific solution.”
According to John Coyne, head of border security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, passengers could possibly be filtered through a corridor, rather than through gates, where their biometrics would be captured without them having to stop.
Speaking to Fairfax media, Dr Coyne said the new system would be a “world first” and would enable passengers to “literally just walk out like at a domestic airport”.
Biometric technology is advancing rapidly thanks to the large amount of passenger data available, which includes ticket information, travel history and criminal records. Dr Coyne said the future of airport security would be about , and it was all about being able to determine which types of passengers posed a risk and allowing others to go through the process more efficiently.
He claimed Australia was “miles ahead of the majority of countries” in terms of airport technology, including London’s Heathrow which he described as “an informed version of the Middle Ages”.
The latest development is the most ambitious part of the government’s AUD 93.7 million (£57 million) Seamless Traveller five-year initiative, introduced in 2015, which, according to Australia’s immigration minister Peter Dutton, will allow for a “fast, seamless self-processing experience and enable border control officers to concentrate on passengers-of-interest”.
While airports in Britain have yet to use such advanced facial recognition systems, the introduction of full-body security scanners, which are used at around 19 airports in the country including London Gatwick, Heathrow, City and Manchester have sparked controversy, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission saying they breach passengers’ rights to privacy.
Earlier this month, the US Customs and Border Protection announced facial recognition software would be used at all international airports in the US, as part of the country's plan to crack down on identity fraud.
New York's JFK Airport began using facial recognition scanners this month, as part of a $10 billion (£8 billion) plan to revamp the airport, while the new software will be used at the Washington Dulles International Airport from February, following a two-month trial in 2015.
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