Mobile Service in the context of the Entry-Exit System

Challenges in Smart Borders

How to reduce the time needed at border crossing points, especially for first-time arrivals, without compromising security?

Europe has set up the smart borders programme to modernise the management of external borders. Member states are confronted with ever-growing numbers of third-country nationals that travel to Europe.

This is both a joint European challenge as well as an individual responsibility of the member states. Under the central infrastructure as set up by EU-Lisa, every state must work on improving the quality as well as the efficiency of external borders at every point of entry, be it road, port or airport.

Despite national responsibilities, the European Commission stimulates the use of industry best practices to help reduce the logistic issues every country faces: how to reduce the time needed at border-crossing points, especially for first-time arrivals, without compromising security?

Traditional Border Control

Traditionally, border control is done at border control points, possibly with e-gates, or through mobile border agents. Many border-crossing points do not have the resources, both space and people, to handle large streams of third-country nationals to register them, obtain biometric data including fingerprints and evaluate the risks involved. Self-service kiosks can alleviate this somewhat, but it can still take several minutes of processing leading to long queues, frustration and possibly aggression at border control points.

Fortunately, other use cases show how self-service can be done securely and reliably, using mobile technology. The functionality needed to read and verify passports as well do holder verification is part of any modern smartphone.

This opens the possibility of moving a substantial part of the process from the point of entry to an earlier stage, remotely including from home.

In the EES and ETIAS regulations, self-service systems are explicitly mentioned and advocated. This mobile technology can be seen as a form of self-service technology, as are kiosks. From a legal perspective, there are, to the best of our knowledge, no obstacles to using mobile technology. On this page, we explain how the technology works in general and how it can be applied in the context of smart borders. We illustrate this with proven use cases.

Mobile identity verification: NFC +biometrics

Modern passports are equipped with a chip following the ICAO 9303 standard. This means that all information is digitally signed and encrypted and cannot be manipulated. Also, the face image is available at a high resolution, without any additional watermarks. Therefore, they are much more suitable for face matching than the printed face image. Finally, a copied chip can be easily detected.

The big breakthrough in this technology came with the availability of smartphones with NFC. Which is now available on all modern smartphones equipped with NFC, and is often used for mobile payments.

A smartphone can be used to read and verify the chips in identity documents, without the need for expensive kiosk hardware. Our software product ReadID works on both Android as well as iPhone. ReadID is used to read the chip and our software at the server is used to verify the data and send the validated information to the entry-exit system.

Identity Verification in 2 simple steps

We regard smartphone data storage as unsafe, as a matter of principle. The validation and processing must be done in the cloud, and not on the smartphone, as smartphones can easily be manipulated, lost or stolen. Only on trusted devices, under strong control of the organisation such as a police force or border control agency, the software can be used client-only.

Reading the chip digitally allows for verifying the validity of the identity document and reading the customer information without the risk of any OCR or typing mistake. In an identity proofing or preregistration process, we can also verify via face matching, that the person owning the passport is currently holding the passport (holder verification).

App ReadID reads data nfc chip with phone

Combination of iProov and ReadID

iProov does both face matching – linked the holder to the image in the chip – as well as advanced liveness detection (called Genuine Presence Assurance), which prevents spoofing /impersonation attacks and even complex AI-based attacks including deepfakes.

A complex process where the software should be strict enough to have almost no false positives (incorrectly accepted persons, for example, look-a-likes or masks), but liberal enough to deal with beards, ageing and different lighting conditions.

The combination of ReadID and iProov has shown to be successful in many mobile onboarding cases. After Brexit, the UK Home Office incorporated our technology into their app for the EU Settlement Scheme, allowing EU nationals to apply online for residence status. More than 6.3 million EU nationals successfully went through this process. The same combination of technologies is used for Eurostar self-service.

Read UK Home Office case study

Eurostar SmartCheck app

Eurostar used our combined technologies successfully for touchless, ticketless, secure travel. Prior to travelling the individual simply enrols via their own device to the Eurostar SmartCheck app. This gives access to an accelerated pre-boarding option, allowing the traveller to add and verify their passport and tickets.

This approach removes the need for the traveller to present tickets or a passport at checkpoints as they depart. Ultimately providing a secure and effortless travel experience with a quicker through-concourse journey on the day of travel. 84% of SmartCheck users would use the remote pre-boarding options in the future.

Read Eurostar case study

These cases have shown that remote identity proofing is possible with the highest security level, and all are fully automated. The data gathered can be used by border forces to streamline processes at the border-crossing points to enable early screening with respect to watch lists and allow a faster simpler traveller experience ahead of border arrival.

With mobile pre-registration, we can reduce border congestion. By streamlining low-risk passenger flow, border control agents can focus on persons of interest.

A customer journey that starts at home

How could this be applied in the context of smart borders? Pre-travel third-country nationals (TCN) can notify their plan at the EU site for pre-registration. They are invited to download a verification app on a smartphone. The smartphone is used as a passport reader and photo camera only.

After downloading the app the TCN performs the identity proofing, allowing the creation of a profile in the EES/ETIAS systems. This profile contains all data from the passport as well as a recent picture taken for the face verification process. This step does not allow obtaining fingerprints that are needed in the profile as well. Fingerprints can be captured when the TCN attends the border point for the first time.

On the basis of this profile, the member state can assess the type of visit: what risk category is the TCN in? Should additional measures be taken?

When travelling, the TCN can notify border control forces of the ETA. This allows us to plan resources better and could, for example, generate a QR code for the TCN that can be used for fast-lane access if appropriate. If the TCN is a returning visitor no fingerprints need to be re-taken and border control can allow for fully automated border passing.

At the point of entry, a picture can be taken under controlled circumstances. Fingerprints can be obtained in a supervised manner. For high-risk profile individuals, additional checks can be performed by border agents.

In this customer journey supervision by border control agents is still an important step. Self-serving data acquisition and identity proofing can optimize border activities as well as reduce stress for travellers at border crossing points. Much of the data capture can be done from a location suitable for the traveller, often in the relatively quiet context of their home, with little or no time pressure. At the point of entry only the supervised steps need to be carried out, and for returning visitors a completely automated process might be considered.