Kazakhstan will install 198 more Q-Gate biometric terminals at its border crossing points by 2028, close to five times the number in service today.
Fifty-four terminals are running now across 11 crossing points, including the international airports in Astana and Almaty. They let citizens aged 16 and over cross without approaching an officer of the KNB Border Service, checking the traveller’s face against the data in their passport. Duman Sembayev, general director of Kazdream Special Systems, put the verification step at 15 seconds.
Officers take about 30 minutes to clear a flight carrying 200 passengers; through the Q-Gate terminals the same aircraft is processed in about seven minutes. Scaling the network by 2028 is intended to raise capacity at crossing points without physically expanding airport terminals or land crossings. Astana’s international airport handled more than one million passengers in a single month for the first time in July.
Foreign nationals sit outside the system for now, and closing that gap is the next piece of work. Sembayev said algorithms are in development for automated contactless checks on foreign citizens, which he framed as strengthening border security, improving the accounting of migration flows and removing the human factor from document checks. Separately, the country has begun pilot testing border passage using a passport QR code presented through the eGov app, with no physical document involved.
Kazakhstan set out wider plans for biometric boarding and AI cargo systems across its aviation sector in May, when transport minister Nurlan Sauranbayev said 16 more Q-Gate terminals would be installed this year at Shymkent, Atyrau, Aktobe and Aktau.
Kazakhstan sets its age floor at 16. The United Kingdom went the other way this year, lowering its own biometric e-gate threshold to eight from July and adding about 1.5 million eligible child travellers. Staffing has been a recurring argument for automated gates elsewhere in Europe. Cyprus is replacing the passport scanners at Larnaca and Paphos with fully automated biometric gates by the end of the year, with its justice minister pointing to their value when staffing is reduced.
Sources: Informburo, Kursiv
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
