Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport has introduced an automated border control system (ABC) from Gemalto and INCOMELEC SAS, a Colombian partner.
Migración Colombia, the country’s border control agency, launched the solution in February with a pilot program at the country’s busiest airport.
The Automated Border Control (ABC) system, known locally as “BIOMIG”, is benefiting both passengers and border officials. The ABC system speeds identity authentication and significantly reduces bottlenecks in the immigration process while maintaining strong security control for each passenger.
A growing majority of airport arrivals in Bogota – up to 60% – are Colombian citizens re-entering the country. This often results in long immigration queues, congested waiting areas and travel weary citizens. “BIOMIG” mitigates these challenges while complying with Colombia’s stringent border control security requirements.
How it works?
The solution integrates a highly intuitive iris recognition terminal that allows swift long range iris capture from 35 to 45 centimeters away. This eliminates physical contact with the terminal and improves comfort and ease of use.
To use the service, Colombian citizens aged 12 and older only need to visit one of 30 BIOMIG enrollment stations at the airport as they exit the country. In less than one minute, their unique iris scan is securely registered with Colombia’s Border Management System (BMS).
When re-entering the country, previously enrolled citizens simply enter their national ID number on a touchscreen integrated with an automated door barrier by INCOMELEC, SAS.
After a quick glance at the iris reader terminal, identity is validated via a secure digital process and the automatic doors swing open.
Gemalto has supported Migración Colombia with state of the art solutions for secure document authentication, biometric solutions and software integration for their border operations.
Francesc Ortodo, Sales Director for Government Programs Latin America at Gemalto:
“The challenge with border control solutions is to minimize and simplify immigration procedures while improving ease, speed and convenience for end users – without compromising security. This is exactly what the ABC Iris solution achieves.”
Colombian citizens can now benefit from strong biometric security within a trusted environment.”
N.B. Image credit: Gemalto
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Gemalto Automated Border Control
