Border Control

Our social and political landscape is changing fast and technology has been one of the key drivers of this change. Nowhere is this more evident than with the development of eSolutions for border controls, ePassports, eID and the biometric technologies involved in these systems

Of course, as with any change, problems, obstacles and objections generally arise for which solutions must be sought. This is particularly true when new technology is involved. Technology may offer us a solution for one area, but this will always have political, economic, social or operational consequences that need to be dealt with before change can successfully take place.

Many of these discussions have already taken place, especially when considering ID across borders, and the implementation of new technology is well under way in may parts of the world and lessons can be learnt.

These lessons include the necessity of creating interoperability of systems between borders, the need for testing and standards to be applied across countries, the need to confront barriers that may exist to compliance and interoperability, security, privacy and the role of biometric technology.

We should also all be looking at ways we can create or enhance the right commercial partnerships, cover all the critical areas of technical specialisation and develop strategies for the implementation of new systems and the management of all this new data.

These are all issues that British Publishers confronts at its important roundtable discussions, on several levels including the political, the operational and the technical.