The European Commission has detailed €170.8 million in contracts for the EU’s identity interoperability program in a newly released implementation report, documenting the investment behind shared biometric and identity services for border, migration and security systems.
The figure covers contracts signed by eu-LISA, the agency responsible for the underlying large-scale IT systems, by December 1, 2025. Payments to contractors had reached €133.2 million at that point. The Commission’s sixth annual report, dated September 7, reviews implementation during 2025 and includes subsequent technical and legislative updates.
The framework connects six information systems through four shared components: the European Search Portal, shared Biometric Matching Service, Common Identity Repository and Multiple-Identity Detector. A separate Central Repository for Reporting and Statistics supports reporting across the architecture.
Those components are designed to let authorized officials cross-check information in line with their access rights, identify possible identity fraud and improve the quality of records used in border and law-enforcement decisions. The covered systems include the Entry/Exit System, ETIAS travel authorization, visa and asylum databases, the Schengen Information System and criminal-record information on third-country nationals.
The shared biometric matching service entered operation in May 2025. IDEMIA Public Security and Sopra Steria implemented the service for eu-LISA, supplying a common matching capability for fingerprints and facial images across participating systems.
Biometric image quality is another part of the technical foundation. eu-LISA has established Open-Source Face Image Quality as a reference tool aligned with ISO/IEC 29794-5:2025. The software supports consistent assessment of face images used in the agency’s large-scale biometric systems.
The Commission says four delegated acts and ten implementing acts were amended between November 2025 and January 2026 to reflect changes involving Eurodac, screening and Prüm II. A practical interoperability handbook was adopted in January for border, visa, immigration and law-enforcement personnel.
The report also describes preparations for manual review of multiple-identity links by the ETIAS Central Unit within Frontex, supported by a tool being developed by eu-LISA.
With respect to the statistics repository, the Commission records completion of changes supporting ETIAS screening-rule reporting in November 2025. The report places the repository’s expected launch in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Sources: European Commission
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
