Taking the stop out of border control

The airport immigration queue could lose one of its most familiar rituals: stopping to prove who you are.

A new system from SITA, the aviation technology company originally founded as Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques, aims to move much of that process away from the immigration desk, eGate or kiosk and complete it before a traveller reaches the border.

SITA Border Flow Lane, launched last week, uses traveller information and authorised biometric data to allow border agencies to make clearance decisions earlier in a journey. Passengers who have been cleared can then be verified as they move through the immigration hall instead of stopping to present a passport.

SITA claims the process can be up to eight times faster than conventional border-control eGates.

The idea builds on a change that has been taking place behind the scenes in international travel for years. Governments receive increasing amounts of information about passengers before an aircraft takes off, allowing border agencies to assess travellers long before they appear in front of an immigration officer.

Border Flow Lane attempts to turn that advance in data collection into a change passengers can actually see – or, more accurately, barely notice.

SITA says more than 75% of travellers can potentially be cleared before departure. Those passengers would be able to keep moving through the border area on arrival, while immigration officers concentrate on people requiring further checks.

Border authorities would retain the ability to stop any passenger at any stage.

Pedro Alves, senior vice president of Borders at SITA, said the technology could also help airports handle growing passenger numbers without continually expanding immigration areas.

“The aviation industry cannot build its way out of every capacity challenge,” he said. “Traveller demand changes constantly, but airport infrastructure doesn’t.”

That problem is becoming increasingly important as airports try to squeeze more passengers through buildings that can take years, and vast amounts of money, to expand.

Traditional eGates have already reduced the need for passengers to deal directly with an immigration officer, but they still create a stopping point. Travellers generally have to enter the gate, scan a passport and undergo a facial check before being released through the other side.

The SITA system shifts more of that work earlier in the trip.

For airports, the benefit would come from throughput. Every passenger who walks through instead of stopping occupies less immigration space and reduces pressure on the equipment used by everyone behind them.

The system also represents another step towards a travel industry in which a passenger’s face increasingly becomes a digital travel credential. Airports and airlines are already experimenting with biometric systems for check-in, security and boarding, although adoption differs widely between countries.

That makes privacy and government oversight critical to systems that extend biometrics into bordercontrol.

SITA says participation in Border Flow Lane is voluntary and travellers must enrol to use authorised biometric data. Border agencies retain control over identity checks and the decision on whether an individual is allowed to cross the border.

The company has yet to make the immigration officer redundant. Border Flow Lane instead changes which passengers need to see one.

That could turn the conventional border process on its head. Today, almost everyone stops and a smaller group receives additional scrutiny. Under the model SITA is proposing, most travellers would keep walking while officers focus on the exceptions.

Alves said that could make better use of the airport infrastructure already in place.

“The opportunity is to make better decisions before travellers arrive, helping trusted travellers keep moving while creating more capacity from the infrastructure already in place,” he said. “Stopping becomes the exception, not the rule.”

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