France Orders Biometric Border Kiosks From Thales

Thales will be helping France to meet its identity verification requirements when the Schengen Area’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) goes into effect in 2022. Under the new system, Schengen member states will be expected to collect the biometric information of non-EU citizens when they enter a European Union country at an international border.

The French Ministry of the Interior will be using the Thales Gemalto Border Kiosks to fulfill that obligation. The self-service Border Kiosk is able to collect face and fingerprint data, and can link that biometric information to that person’s travel documents. In that regard, the Kiosk also boasts document reading capabilities to ensure that those documents are authentic.

According to Thales, the entire biometric registration and identity verification process can be completed in less than a minute, and is still secure enough to weed out imposters. The French Ministry of the Interior has ordered hundreds of Kiosks, and will install them at the country’s air, sea, and land borders.

“The pre-registration kiosks manufactured by Thales are equipped with our state-of-the-art technologies for identity creation and verification,” said Thales Identity and Biometrics SVP Youzec Kurp. “We have therefore been able to develop high-performance tools to support operations, without compromising the safety and protection of travelers’ data.”

“This new European entry and exit system represents a major challenge for Member States,” added the Ministry. “Thales’ expertise in identity and border management provides us with technological reliability, without having to make a choice between security and ease of use.” 

The Ministry will presumably be pairing the Thales kiosks with its new standard border control system (CCAF), which will be rolled out over the course of the next year. The CCAF system is being developed by IDEMIA and Sopra Steria, and was built with an eye toward interoperability.

For its part, Thales recently renewed its e-passport contract with Belgium. The company has also been conducting a biometric screening pilot at the Adolfo Suarez airport in Madrid.

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March 22, 2021 – by Eric Weiss