Home Affairs lights up new biometric system

The Department of Home Affairs has switched on the new Enterprise Biometric Identification Services (EBIS) system, which will be used to help improve border processing.

The system uses a multifactor identity management and authentication solution from Unisys, as well as French multinational IDEMIA’s facial and fingerprint recognition algorithms.

The new platform will be used to match the facial images and fingerprints of people including those wishing to travel to Australia such as visa applicants and citizenship applicants.

It is designed to support anticipated growth in visa applications, border clearances and applications for citizenship over the next 10 years.

The department expects that the system will allow border clearance staff to more efficiently verify the identities of travellers to avoid queues and improve the overall experience.

The platform will be upgraded in the future to flag people who may be crossing the border with fraudulent identities.

Unisys’s Stealth(identity) platform, which is at the core of the new platform, is capable of processing more than 100,000 transactions daily while matching images across large-scale galleries of over 100 million records.

EBIS will replace the previous biometrics matching system that has been provided and supported by Unisys for the last 12 years.

“The long-term growth in the volume of travellers that will hopefully return after COVID-19, as well as the increased risk of potential terrorist or fraudulent activity, means that effective border security is more important than ever,” Unisys Asia Pacific VP and GM Rick Mayhew said.

“EBIS provides Home Affairs with greater confidence in verifying an individual’s identity for efficient and early detection of criminals and persons of national security concern who change names and obtain passports using false identities.”

The platform also uses IDEMIA’s flagship product Multi Biometric Search Services (MBSS), which uses both face and fingerprint matching algorithms for large-scale identification. The platform can also incorporate other biometric modalities such as iris recognition.

“We are thrilled to provide the biometric engine that powers the EBIS solution. This is the continuation of years of IDEMIA’s engagement in the Australian Borders ecosystem,” IDEMIA APAC President Tim Ferris said.

“The combined strengths of IDEMIA behind Unisys provide the Department of Home Affairs with a flagship platform to secure the border now and into the future.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Imaging L