Customs rethinks self-service

Customs has shelved plans to trial a self-service kiosk at Auckland airport that would have let frequent fliers re-enter the country without having their passports checked at a manned customs booth.

Information services chief Peter Rosewarne says the decision to "step back" from automated passport checks is temporary and may presage a more far-reaching shake-up of border controls.

This may result in all non-citizens being fingerprinted before or on arrival in New Zealand and passport, customs and biosecurity controls being combined into a single border check.

Customs issued a tender for the self-service kiosk trial in March last year, envisaging a kiosk would be used by about 1000 frequent fliers who had pre-enrolled to take part in the trial.

The kiosk was to have been equipped with a scanner capable of checking machine-readable passports, a camera and facial recognition software, and might also have been able to check passengers' fingerprints against prints passengers had provided when they enrolled.

Mr Rosewarne says Customs retained the right to cancel the tender and recently decided to do this.

"Automation is going to play a role in the future, there is no doubt about that" and some form of trusted traveller scheme that could speed up border checks for frequent fliers remains on the table, he says.

But Customs' emphasis has moved toward the mass processing of e-passports, which contain passengers' photos on a microchip, and other initiatives to speed up trans-Tasman travel.

Kiosks will be used to check e-passports and there will be a pilot scheme, but when that happens passengers will not have to pre-enrol, Mr Rosewarne says.

An immigration bill, now in front of a parliamentary select committee, would give border control officers the right to collect and store fingerprints and iris scans from non-citizens, and to use instant biometric checks at the border to ensure New Zealanders re-entering the country were not travelling on forged documents.

Immigration border security manager Arron Baker says now the bill is in its "final stages", the Cabinet has given Immigration the go-ahead to do further research on the use of biometrics.

"By June we have got to go back with a detailed design about how we propose to use biometrics in the immigration system.

"The intention in the bill is biometrics will be a requirement for all non-New Zealanders."

Mr Baker says people who require a visa to visit New Zealand will probably have to provide "multi-factor" biometric identifiers - such as a face, fingerprint and iris scan - as part of their visa application.

This would mirror the approach of the British Government.

Travellers who do not require visas might be fingerprinted or scanned on arrival.

"It has still got to go back to Cabinet on the detailed design, but the legislation provides for face, fingerprint and iris, plus dna [samples] for different purposes," Mr Baker says.

"Those three will be the shopping list we will evaluate."

Mr Rosewarne says Customs wants to ensure 90 per cent of international travellers are able to leave airports within an hour of stepping off their plane, to improve visitors' experiences.

Combining passport, customs and biosecurity checks into a single process is a possibility. "There is work on that going on at the moment. It is being joint-led by the border agencies."

New Zealand already has "very good" border-protection systems, which are well connected to other government IT systems, Mr Rosewarne says.

When passengers check in for flights to New Zealand at overseas airports, their passport details are forwarded electronically to customs officers in New Zealand who can instruct airlines to refuse passengers permission to board.

- © Fairfax NZ News