Nigeria has started installing biometric egates for arriving passengers at its international airports.
The first airport to install the facial recognition system is Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.
Abuja is installing 10 biometric ABC egates. So far, four are in use and the remaining six egates should be operational before the end of March 2024.
Biometric egates at 5 international airports
Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, announced on X that the government is installing biometric egates at the country’s five international airports.
The project aims to deliver a total of 40 biometric egates across the five airports by the end of March.
The airports involved and number of egates to be installed are:
- Lagos – 17 egates
- Abuja – 10 egates
- Port Harcourt – 4 egates
- Kano – 5 egates
- Enugu – 4 egates
How it works
A physical barrier opens to allow passengers to enter the egate.
Once inside, the passengers insert their passport into the egate. The egate reads the biometric chip in the passport and compares those details which contain the passenger facial biometrics with the live biometrics taken by the kiosk.
If all is OK, the gate will open and admit the passenger into the country.
Privacy
Automated border control systems can collect information on the biometric page of the passport, such as facial biometrics, name, sex, date of birth, passport number, passport photograph, nationality, passport country of origin, and visa information.
As well as immigration, egates can link to law enforcement, tax authorities and all sorts of government and private entities.
Supplier
The supplier is not yet publicly known but is probably NEC.
NEC and the federal Ministry of Finance of Nigeria had talks in March 2023 for the conclusion of agreements to deploy NEC’s facial recognition technology at some of the country’s airports, starting with a pilot at Abuja and Lagos.
Nigeria airports
There are 32 airports in Nigeria, including the five international ones.
More than 16 million passengers flew into and out of Nigeria in 2022. Those five airports were responsible for 89.7% of the total passengers, the other 27 airports just 10.3%.
Over 14 million passengers went through the five airports, while the remaining 27 airports had a total of 1.6 million.
