SITA and NEC Europe have announced an agreement to jointly provide an automated border control eGate solution, employing sophisticated biometrics technology, for use at airports in the European Union (EU).
The system incorporates face recognition, and optionally fingerprint verification. According to the companies, passengers can be processed in 10 seconds or less.
Automated border control eGate systems provide many of the established benefits of passenger self-service, including:
- passengers spend less time waiting
- staff carry out more productive work
- airports can increase revenue
The automated border control eGate, also known as ABC eGate, only requires manual intervention by an immigration officer in cases when a match between passenger and passport is unsuccessful. This frees up border security staff to perform other duties.
Dan Ebbinghaus, SITA Vice President, Government Solutions:
“SITA has significant experience in dealing with the challenges facing border control authorities around the globe and automated border control (ABC) gates are recognized as a potential solution to the combined goals of improving the passenger journey and increasing border security.
“Working with NEC, our ABC gates combine SITA’s air transport industry experience and market knowledge with the fastest and most accurate face recognition software in the market. This combination will provide significant benefits to border control and airport authorities.”
A core element in this automated border control eGate solution is NEC’s “NeoFace” face recognition algorithm which provides speed, accuracy and performance regardless of the database size and image quality. NEC face recognition technologies were ranked number one in tests carried out by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Automated border control eGates are rapidly becoming a reality at airports worldwide for departure and arrivals.
Read the press release from SITA.
