The Future of Airports: How Automated Immigration Could Revolutionise Border Security

The Rise of eGates: Touchless Biometric Access Control System For Immigration Automation

Airport Security is one of the most significant security challenges faced by countries around the world. Airports, as the most important access point, remain a hotspot for criminal activity with millions of travellers travelling throughout the day. Face recognition technology finds itself at the heart of airport security, with governments realising the incredible benefits of implementing an automated immigration system.

Face Recognition & Iris Detection

Security organisations such as Facia have introduced solutions that can eliminate the need for human agents. Passengers can gain access to certain airport entry points by scanning their face, or using their iris scans for a more accurate experience. This becomes key in preventing rising cases of identity theft and enhances the overall customer experience. Imagine skipping those long queues at busier airports after an extremely long flight.

The Emergence of AI in Visa Processing

AI-Driven technologies are being used to enhance visa processing at airports globally, leveraging face recognition and iris detection capabilities. There are several countries that have already introduced biometric entry points including USA, U.K, Australia & China. Moreover, Germany, Canada, Hong Kong and many other countries have outlined plans for introducing these measures in the near future.

Why do we need advanced facial recognition?

There have been a few interesting cases of identity theft involving international traveller. For example, in 2022, a pair of Chinese twins navigated through some of the busiest airports in the world including Brazil, Japan & Russia. They travelled on each other’s passports, and it all began when one of the twin could not obtain a Japanese Visa. The authorities finally caught up, but it raised an important concern regarding airport security.

What does this mean for the future of travel?

Future would become seamless, faster and a hassle-free experience for everyone. Travel complications can ruin someone’s day, or even make it worse as people travel for all sort of reasons including leisure, work, celebration and bereavement. In such scenarios, the last thing one would want is waiting in a queue for an hour at an immigration checkpoint.

Similarly, with reduced queues, it also lessens the pressure on airport security individuals that have to be on high alert. During COVID-19, passengers had to keep a significant distance which further crowded the airports and eventually impacted the flight schedules throughout the world. Face Recognition and biometric entry points would require no close contact between individuals throughout the check-in/check-out processes.

Increased response time

A centralised system would also increase the response time, as it would alert any suspicious activity automatically. An advanced system backed by AI could potentially could better categorise and read situations, preventing false alerts and vetting actual threats.

The aim of introducing facial recognition measures is to increase security and decrease passenger complications. We have often witnessed long queues at busier airports e.g, Heathrow, JFK etc. By introducing facial recognition measures, airport security is able to quickly identify individuals that pose potential threats, particularly those on watchlists. This broadens their research and expands the security team’s capabilities.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.