Eurostar’s biometric border is ready for next-generation passport controls

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Eurostar’s biometric border is ready for next-generation passport controls

National borders are a contentious issue among populists and their communications channels. Away from the hyperbole and rhetoric, borders are changing, not physically shifting, but digitizing. If border forces and travel operators are to combat the criminal elements that abuse borders, then digitization is required. Most border crossings are honest travelers who cross borders to trade, work and experience other cultures.

European rail operator Eurostar has, throughout its short (by rail industry standards) history, garnered a reputation for being at the forefront of technology adoption. Gareth Williams, General Secretary and Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer for Eurostar has led the adoption of digital biometric technology to increase the accuracy and pace of the border at its gateway to Europe, London St Pancras International.

Biometric data (the application of statistical analysis to biological data) is coming to travel, in particular across Europe. The European Union’s new entry and exit system that uses biometric data is again delayed, but travel industry experts believe it will be in place before summer 2025. Also, in 2025, ETEAS will be introduced, whereby 60 countries from visa-exempt countries will have to acquire travel authorization to enter 30 European countries, a situation travelers to the US from Europe are used to. In the UK, the Electronic Travel Authorization is already up and running for some nationalities. As Eurostar’s senior leader on these issues, Williams says:

If you look at the last decade, there has been a steady ramping up of controls at the border, and the border processes have become more demanding and complex. That has an obvious impact on the throughput and capacity.

As governments have increased their border demands, they have not been ignorant of the opportunity to use technology to make the border secure but not inhibit trade and travel. Williams says:

There is a round of significant change in what happens at the border, driven by data and automation.

The delay to the EU’s biometric entry and exit system was announced days before diginomica met with Williams. For the international rail operator, the delay was insignificant:

49 kiosks are already connected to the French systems. So we are prepared and ready for EU biometrics.

Border process changes impact passengers and operators alike. The major benefit of high-speed rail travel over air travel is that typically you depart and leave from a city center, making it highly productive and faster in many cases for meetings. However, city center rail stations have physical space constraints that an airport that is 22 kilometres (Heathrow) from the city center does not. Williams adds:

The space constraints at the stations are a challenge. Each year, we have to get several million people through five processes in the space of three tennis courts.

Trains take the lead

Williams, who joined Eurostar in 2011 as Strategy Director, has been monitoring and preparing for the digitization of border processes:

We have been working on this for a number of years, partly because as the technology improves, so too does the policy environment and culture within the control authorities. The technology has been there for a while.

Eurostar has done more than lobby governments; the rail operator has procured and implemented a biometric borders technology in partnership with UK technology firm iProov and its SmartCheck system. SmartCheck, currently only available to Business Premier and Carte Blanche passengers, involves travelers enrolling their ticket, passport and picture to the downloaded iProov App on their phones to get a contactless ticket and border processing at St Pancras International Station. Eurostar began using SmartCheck in the summer of 2023, following a trial between December 2021 and April 2022. Of taking the leap and implementing the technology, Williams says: 

This really unlocks the opportunity to turn to the control authorities and show the foundations for a future border that is aligned with what the control authorities are trying to achieve with border checking.

With SmartCheck, we are taking this out of the abstract and starting to point towards the potential for an automated border and what it could deliver. It has been a really good way of engaging with the authorities, as there is something concrete, and it works.

Future platform

SmartCheck builds on the relationship of trust travelers already have with their mobile devices, which has become the primary way we bank, shop and communicate. Ahead of a journey, the traveler pre-registers their passport and ticket data on the App, and until they arrive at St Pancras International, the data remains on the device and nowhere else. On entry to the station, the traveler triggers the App to say they are ready to travel, and as they walk past a camera-equipped podium device at unique check-in points, the App completes the UK border exit. Williams says of the way the App works and its selection:

One of the things I liked about iProov is the independence of the data; you connect at the point you do your registration, you connect again when you need to travel, and in between, the data sits with you. It is the equivalent of choosing to hand over your passport at the point of verification and then putting it back in your pocket.

Eurostar didn’t want a centralized information repository. That respect for the very personal relationship we have with our passports was key to Eurostar, Williams says:

It is important that the technology is efficient and improves things, but for us, there is also brand association, and trust is a big part of that. With a diverse European passenger mix, there is a whole range of attitudes to personal data and sharing we have to respect.

A further concern with facial recognition technology is whether it can be spoofed in an age of AI deep fakes; only this week, I witnessed an AI-generated likeness to President Barack Obama. SmartCheck illuminates the user’s face with a sequence of rapidly changing colors, and while the face is illuminated, the video is sent back to iProov servers for instant analysis. The London-based company says this can discern the difference between a real human face and a digital artefact.

My take

This implementation and the fact that it was led by Williams, the General Secretary and Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer, is an example of how digital leadership is expanding across the organization. As firms such as Eurostar seek to digitize elements of their processes, the leadership of those programs is no longer the sole responsibility of the CIO. This is not a threat to the CIO; they have plenty to do; it is a sign that the digitization of the organization is now maturing and that the technology and tech partners can work with teams other than IT.

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