secunet solution to process biometric data for Estonia visa applications and border control

Apr 11, 2018, 4:54 pm EDT | Stephen Mayhew

Categories Biometrics News | Border and Port Security

secunet announced that it has supplied biometric middleware to the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the country’s border control authority to manage optical and electronic document checks and process biometric data for visa applications and border control.

secunet biomiddle will be installed first on 500 workstations at checkpoints operated by police and border guards and at Ministry of Foreign Affairs embassies. Procurement was the responsibility of the IT and development centre of the Estonian Ministry of the Interior (SMIT), which provides IT support for government applications in Estonia.

The middleware will be used in embassies to process more than 150,000 visa applications per year. It manages the components used to capture the biographical and biometric data required in the application process. At border control checkpoints, secunet biomiddle will be used to enhance stationary and mobile border control. The solution will allow border agents to deal more efficiently with over ten million international travellers per year.

In both applications, secunet biomiddle coordinates optical and electronic document checks, as well as standard biometric functions for data acquisition, quality assessment and verification. secunet biomiddle allows the flexible integration of processes as well as software and hardware components via standard interfaces.

According to the announcement, the new High Level Document Check interface (HLDC2) of secunet biomiddle in accordance with the Technical Guideline TR-03135 of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) further facilitates the border control process. It reduces the complexity of the verification process by separating document checking and standard-compliant logging from the problem-specific processing and visualisation of results. Logging of optical checks and evaluation of the results are thus based on the latest standard.

In January it was reported that Vienna International Airport has been using secunet’s eGates automated border control system to provide convenient and efficient border control.