Every year a large number of visitors enter the European Union (EU) by cars, buses, trains or ships through land-border crossing points or sea ports bringing significant economic benefits; in particular, 9% of Europe’s GDP comes from tourism (directly or indirectly), and the sector employs nearly 35 million people in the region. This trend is set to continue, as Europe further considers visa liberalization agreements in a bid to sustain their competitive stance in the global tourism market. This will create major implications on the security and border management in the EU as a whole, as well as diminishing the Quality of Experience for passenger travel.

Existing directives for controlling border crossing is to conduct checks using biometric data (fingerprint) in conjunction with VIS (Visa Information Systems). The use of biometric identification techniques coupled with efficient and secure wireless connections that enable access to EU law enforcement databases are proven techniques for ensuring efficiency and reliability. However, current biometric systems rely on one mode of biometric data that can at times can lead to false identification, in particularly under uncontrolled conditions during live sample acquisition (vehicular scenarios). Moreover, the current crop of scanning devices are limited in coverage and typically have fixed links, thus confining the range of border control applications and compromising the comfort of passengers.

In this context, we aim to go beyond legacy systems and propose an innovative passenger-centric biometric system that authenticates “on the fly”, or so called zero footprint. We combine the scientific field of wireless security, biometric recognition and data fusion through interdisciplinary research resulting in a secure and wireless multimodal biometric scanning device for passenger verification targeting land and sea border control applications.

In addition to advancing innovation on border control security, the research approach is the basis for a RISE training action that is foreseen to enhance both the career potential of staff members and innovation capacity at the institutional level. In this context, this action brings together key players from industry and academia with complementary expertise on security, biometrics, data fusion and practical experimentation to train staff by research through intersectorial and international staff exchanges. These will act as transfer of knowledge channels that will arm their curriculum with a palette of skills and experiences in this dynamic sector and take a step towards promoting their level of professional maturity and future career perspectives.