News and insight into biometric identification and authentication

SmartGate popularity rising in New Zealand

Thursday, June 16, 2011

New Zealand border officials are seeing half of travelers through airports use SmartGates, the automated checkpoints that use the chip on e-passports and facial recognition to confirm a traveler’s identity, according to a Dominion Post article.

In response to its growing success at the airports, the New Zealand government has been considering lowering the age at which the passport chip and face-recognition utilizing SmartGates may be used by its citizens from 18 to either 16 or 17.

Other plans for new and expanded biometric security at the airport have also been touched on, including bringing automatic face recognition to terminals so that each passenger’s face would be scanned upon exiting their plane and linking the digital processing with Australia to bring a more domestic travel feel to those between the two countries.


Additionally, New Zealand is considering opening up the SmartGate program to travelers from other countries besides Australia.

Read the full story here[end] 

Vision-Box, a biometrics solutions provider, has come out with an automatic border control e-gate that supports multimodal biometric authentication.

This new e-gate is a thin system that contains vb i-match, a single sourced design that is modular and flexible and can be adapted to business requirements and infrastructure constraints that would otherwise disrupt passenger flow. It has the ability to cope with industry standards such as ICAO. The e-gate supports iris, fingerprint and facial biometrics.

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Australia’s Attorney General and Ministry of Defense are exploring ways to grant reciprocation for fast-tracking each other’s citizens through customs checks in both countries, reports Australian Business Traveller.

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DigitalPersona Inc. released a new version of its DigitalPersona Pro Enterprise software that includes facial recognition as a method for authentication.

Facial recognition can now be combined with fingerprint biometrics, passwords, PINs, proximity cards, smart cards and OATH tokens for a multi-factor authentication solution. Policy creation and enforcement works through a client’s existing Active Directory infrastructure.

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Travelers into Dubai International Airport will have the option of using an automated border crossing checkpoint, according to GulfNews.com.

Initially deployed in Terminal three, but expected to be rolled out throughout the airport, the system will read the passports and check the facial image and iris against a watch list. The entire process takes about 15 seconds.

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