8 months ago
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The Jamaican Government plans to start generating real-time data on the millions of persons entering the country by air and sea, using face scans and other biometric information that will be accessible by local and overseas law enforcement.
It will be the largest upgrade of the nation’s border system in two decades, according to the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency, PICA, the agency leading the project.
PICA says its aim is to create a “seamlessly integrated and smooth border control operation from 2024 onwards”. It’s put out a tender for a large ‘high-level’ contractor to implement the new system. The cost of the project is unknown.
“Various automated solutions are expected to form a complex loop with the introduction of an integrated border management ecosystem,” PICA stated in the tender.
The document explicitly highlights biometrics as a key aspect of the upgrade.
PICA wants biometric identification “such as but not limited to fingerprints, and facial recognition”, according to its tender.
Such technology is not new to Jamaica.
Jamaica’s largest airport, Sangster International Airport, started using biometric face scanning about a year ago, its operator, MBJ Airport Limited said. Sangster’s system would integrate with the wider PICA system once operational, MBJ told the Financial Gleaner on Thursday.
The last major border security upgrade was in 2004, which predates the formation of PICA three years later in 2007. The predecessor entity was the Immigration, Citizenship, and Passport Services Division within the Ministry of National Security.
The integrated border management ecosystem, or IBME, allows different agencies, such as immigration, customs, law enforcement and intelligence, to share information easily.
On the surface, it will reduce wait time for legitimate travellers going through customs and immigration. That’s because the system will allow for automated check-ins at kiosks and e-gates, thereby quickening the pace of the screenings that travellers go through.
The upgrade will initially affect the airports at Norman Manley International and Sangster International, and the cruise pier at Freeport in Montego Bay.
The passenger throughput at Sangster International last year was 5.2 million, and 1.75 million for Norman Manley International, while more than 240,000 cruise passengers were handled at the Montego Freeport Cruise terminal.
A traveller who enters and exits the country gets counted as two units in the total passenger count. A biometric database would avoid double-counting.
“The goal is to populate a biometrics database for all travellers entering Jamaica and then using it subsequently to verify identities more securely for future border crossing events,” said PICA.
The agency is yet to respond to Financial Gleaner requests for comment on the new system; nor has the Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association and the Ministry of Tourism weighed in so far on the implications for tourist travel. More than four million tourists visit annually.
The border ecosystem forms part of an overall move to improve security. The authorities want the ecosystem to protect the country from potential threats of illegal immigration, terrorism, smuggling and human trafficking, the document indicated.
Currently, border control is “outdated”, “fragmented” and “non-biometric”, as stated by PICA.
The upgrade would replace a series of ageing systems, one element of which was sourced from 3M but which no longer offers customer support for that generation of product.
“The current [system], if allowed to continue, shall continue to undermine national and border security of Jamaica. More specifically, data streams shall continue to be asynchronous across all border points which compromises any and all decision-making carried out by the Jamaican Immigration officials,” said PICA.
The upgrade will require a large contractor with border system experience, and sales that are upwards of US$30 million, annually. Additionally, the provider must have high-level data encryption capabilities. That’s to avoid data leaks, while keeping data accessible to PICA, local law enforcement, Interpol, and select data to airlines.
The issue of privacy remains a key component in the tender with the contractor being explicitly forbidden from using the data for third-party purposes, unless authorised.
Some Jamaicans have already given up their biometric data to local authorities via the e-passports that PICA starting last year.
The e-passport contains a chip on the front page that’s machine-readable. The embedded chip contains an electronic microprocessor chip with biometric information to authenticate the identity of the passport holder, PICA said in its annual report for year ending 2023. It formed part of the wider international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Regular, diplomatic and official passports are all being updated to e-passports.
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