SmartGate

SmartGate
SmartGate for departures at Sydney Airport, Australia
Type of project	Electronic border control system
Country	Australia, New Zealand
Launched	2007; 17 years ago (2007)[1] Brisbane Airport[2]
Status	Active

SmartGate (eGate in New Zealand) is an automated self-service border control system operated by the Australian Border Force (ABF) and New Zealand Customs Service (NZCS) and located at immigration checkpoints in departure and arrival halls in ten Australian international airports, and 4 New Zealand international airports (as eGate). SmartGates allow Australian ePassport holders and ePassport holders of a number of other countries to clear immigration controls more rapidly, and to enhance travel security by performing passport control checks electronically.^[3]

SmartGate uses facial recognition technology to verify the traveller's identity against the data stored in the chip in their biometric passport, as well as checking against immigration databases. To use the SmartGate system, the traveller must have a biometric passport from Australia, New Zealand or certain other countries (these ePassports have the biometric logo on the front cover). The ePassport gate scanner reads all the information contained in the chip inside the passport and runs the data against numerous databases to determine if the traveller is a security risk, while a camera takes a picture of the traveller and an officer at a control station behind the gates checks that the image captured by the camera matches the one on the passport (facial recognition).^[4] Once the data verification and facial recognition process is complete, doors will automatically either open, signifying that the traveller is permitted to enter and/or exit the country, or remain closed and a stop icon illuminate, demonstrating that the traveller has failed the security checks and will personally meet with immigration officials.

Travellers require a biometric passport to use SmartGate as it uses information from the passport (such as photograph, name and date of birth) and in the respective countries' databases (i.e. banned travellers database) to decide whether to grant entry or departure from the country or to generate a referral to a customs agent.^[5] These checks would otherwise require manual processing by a human, which is time-consuming, costly and potentially error-prone.^[6]