Rubber Stamp for SmartGate?

By PULLAR-STRECKER Tom

NEW ZEALAND Customs might pilot electronic kiosks that will automate passport checks for passengers arriving at Auckland airport next year, if tests go well.

Customs will test a “SmartGate” kiosk supplied by the Australian Customs Service in a “laboratory environment” at its offices in Wellington over the next few months to see whether they could be easily integrated with its Cusmod computer system.

The kiosk would read people’s passport information from computer chips that are bound into all newly-issued Australian and New Zealand passports.

Passengers’ faces would be scanned using a digital camera and an automatic gate would open to let passengers through customs control if there were no problems.

Deputy comptroller Robert Lake says the kiosks would be piloted first with passengers in Auckland, because it is “the gateway into New Zealand” for about 70 per cent of air travellers. At first they would only be used by New Zealand and Australian passport holders.

The year 2011 would be a “symbolic date” to aim for their routine use, because of the Rugby World Cup.

The Australian Customs Service has installed the SmartGate kiosks at Brisbane airport and they will soon be introduced in Sydney and Melbourne. It is also considering installing three kiosks at Auckland airport that would be used by passengers departing New Zealand for Australia. Passengers would move straight to the automatic gates to have their faces scanned and be let into the country on arrival in Australia.

Mr Lake says Customs is not sure whether government procurement rules might oblige Customs to issue a competitive tender for border control kiosks, or whether it could simply buy the Australian system if it proved suitable.

Customs and Auckland airport issued their own tender for border control kiosks in March 2006. They cancelled the tender last year when Customs’ focus shifted toward allowing the mass processing of e- passports in conjunction with Australia, rather than piloting a scheme aimed only at frequent fliers who would have had to pre- enrol.

“Having a similar process each side of the Tasman makes sense and with the ties between the countries at the political level it would be daft of us not to explore that and see where it takes us,” Mr Lake says. The Australian Customs Service had been “very generous” in lending New Zealand a SmartGate kiosk and gate for its trial, he says.

Mr Lake says Customs is funding the technology trials of SmartGate from its operational funding, but is preparing a Budget bid to continue with the project. Customs might also ask airlines and airports to contribute to the cost of installing the kiosks if there was a benefit to them. “We will want to talk to them about it.” The kiosks could help airports cope with the projected rise in air travel but are not expected to result in job losses, he says.

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