Australia's New 'Contactless' Biometric Scanning Eliminates Human Intervention [VIDEO]

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Australia goes digital with new biometric scanning system at its airports replacing the existing system. Though the bill to replace the system was passed in 2015, the news of implementation just broke couple of days ago.

As per AOL, International visitors will not be frisked anymore or standing in long queues to pass through the immigration checks. Australia government has ditched the age-old system of passports scanning mechanism through electronic machine readers and physical verification of documents to let visitors inside the country.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Seamless Traveler project will process the applicants seamlessly with no hiccups just like walking through a domestic airport. The pilot project is first to be inaugurated in Canberra Airport by July 2017 and subsequently in Sydney and Melbourne during this year.

Currently, the passengers should go through SmartGates installed at all Australian airports, which electronically scan all the documents including passports. The proposed "contactless" system will scan the face, iris and/or fingerprints and matches with the existing data.

The Australian government is planning to transform 90% of the airports into the new system by 2020. This new system will reduce manpower at airports and process the immigration automatically.

The head of border security for Australia Strategic Policy Institute, Dr. John Coyne said that the passengers are allowed to pass through corridors instead of gates and the biometrics were captured and checked without the need for passengers to stop anywhere. He further added that Australia is miles ahead of other countries including the US and the UK in modernizing airport technology.

Some concerns are expressed that government is storing the biometric information and hence invade the privacy of the travelers. However, the Australian government is unperturbed by such claims.

Though Australia is the first country to implement this biometric project, America has already tested the biometric system in Washington, Dallas, and New York airports but has not implemented it so far. The project is expected to cost $100 million for the next 5 years and to be rolled out completely by March 2019.