Airport selects Gemalto to ease and secure traffic at border control

Gemalto has been chosen by Paris Aéroport to supply, install and maintain its Coesys Automated Border Control gates, as part of the French PARAFE program (Automated Fast Track Crossing at External Borders). The solution is based on fingerprint recognition and aims to increase capacity and improve traveler experience. ​

Gemalto and its trusted partner Automatic Systems have been selected by Paris Aéroport to provide 87 e-gates, in Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports. By the spring of 2017, with only their passport and fingerprint, passengers will be able to start passing through new, faster e-gates from Gemalto and save time on departure and at arrival in Paris main airports​. With 95.2 million passengers passing through them each year, ensuring the best possible security while simultaneously improving passenger fluidity is the goal.

The process is both fast, user-friendly and highly secure: at the e-gate, passengers present their electronic passport, then their finger. The fingerprint is matched against the biometric data stored in the document. While the identity of the traveler is verified at the e-gate, Border Protection Officers can keep monitoring the information in real-time in order to allow border crossing.

Frédéric Trojani, Executive Vice President of Government Programs at Gemalto, explains that the project is beneficial for both passengers and border control officers: "From a passenger point of view, our solution gives the experience of an uninterrupted passage through the gates as it only takes a few seconds. It allows optimum use of biometric technologies and also improves border control security as it allows for increased detection of fraud cases."

The solution has been designed to evolve over time from fingerprint recognition to facial recognition as well.

Prime contractor Gemalto has teamed up with two Bolloré Group subsidiaries, Automatic Systems and IER, to deploy the project.