Zurich Airport: Fingerprints for EU trips
Zurich Airport is preparing its border controls for the digital age. The cybersecurity company secunet is making the border controls at Zurich Airport in Switzerland fit for the upcoming European entry/exit system (EU entry/exit system, EES). The busiest international airport in Switzerland will be equipped with EES-compliant border control technology.
The current project is based on a framework agreement concluded in 2021 between secunet and the Zurich cantonal police. This results in a two-digit million amount in Swiss francs and has a term of several years.
As part of the Smart Borders initiative of the European Union, third-country nationals will in future be obliged to register with a facial image and four fingerprints at the land, sea and air borders of the Schengen area. The data is stored in the central EES. This will probably make it easier to determine when third-country nationals exceed the permitted length of stay.
In addition, illegal entry into the Schengen area prevented. However, registration at the borders also increases the workload. When international air traffic returns to normal, there is a risk of long waiting times at the border control counters. However, infrastructures that are optimally tailored to the EES help to save time and counteract this effect.
Am airport Zurich secunet is currently implementing an EES compliant border control application and is also delivering a central server component that connects the various border control components and WILL communicate directly with the EU’s central EES.
In the future, the infrastructure will continue to be equipped with EES-compliant components, e.g. B. with ABC systems for automated border control and self-service kiosks for biometric pre-registration.
In addition to Switzerland, many other European countries already rely on secunet’s border control technology, which WILL help them, among other things, with the introduction to the EES. These include Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
The listed IT company headquartered in Essen offers its customers solutions, products and services in the field of IT security. not only implements technology, but also advises European states with regard to the EES – for example how passenger processes should be set up in the future, how biometric recording can be carried out in compliance with requirements and how infrastructures can be implemented as sustainably as possible.
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