Inverid and iProov revealed as developers for Frontex’ ‘Travel to Europe’ EES app

Inverid and its face biometrics and liveness detection partner iProov are behind the pre-registration app launched by Frontex to meet the requirements of Europe’s incoming Entry/Exit System (EES), Biometric Update can reveal.

Frontex announced the arrival of the Travel to Europe app as a voluntary tool for national authorities to implement to streamline EES entry processes in a social media post on Sunday.

Streamlining entries is a pressing priority for EU member states and their neighbors, as concerns about prohibitive wait times at borders and capacity limits have forced the system’s launch to be delayed and altered to a phased approach.

A white paper from Inverid on “Entry/Exit System Queue Busting Through Pre-Registration” describes the use of digital machine-readable travel documents (mMRTDs) to carry out traveler identity verification and optimize passenger flows.

Inverid confirmed the contract with Frontex and its own partnership with iProov on the project in an email to Biometric Update.

The app is used to scan the machine-readable and visual inspection zones in the traveler’s passport prior to travel. The same document’s NFC chip is scanned to extract data and prove its authenticity, and the traveler submits a selfie biometric for a liveness check. The document scanning function is supplied by Inverid’s Read ID, while the liveness check function is provided by iProov.

Inverid and iProov are also partnered with Entrust on the SmartCheck biometric application used by Eurostar.

The app was referred to by the name “QuickBorder” during the APP4EES pilot project. A prototype of the app was tested at Arlanda and Schiphol airports, in Sweden and the Netherlands, respectively, during the pilot.

The pilot ran for six weeks, with the results independently analyzed. Inverid calls the early results “very encouraging,” and notes that in addition to being rebranded, the app was also “revised.”

Sweden has already confirmed it will use the app once EES takes effect.

People make 500 million trips cross Europe’s borders per year, Frontex Deputy Executive Director Uku Särekanno said during a keynote on the app at the Tallinn Digital Summit in November. Särekanno explicitly connected the app’s development to the “longer queues” which would be “highly likely” under EES, due to the additional data collection it involves. That data is face and fingerprint biometrics, along with information about the individuals’ travel plans.

The Travel to Europe app can provide all of this information except the fingerprints, which Särekanno notes would still have to be collected at border crossings. iProov and others are working on smartphone-based contactless fingerprint capture technology which could potentially enable all biometric data to be submitted ahead of time in the future.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  document verification  |  Entry/Exit System (EES)  |  face biometrics  |  facial verification  |  Frontex  |  Inverid  |  iProov  |  mobile app  |  selfie biometrics  |  Travel to Europe