New Biometric Australian Passports

[infoworks]

Unless you have sat in front of the cameras and been scanned at some point, I don't think you have the ability to go through the "smartgate", even with the biometric passport. I also heard it was "closed" for new applicatnts at this stage (a funding issue rather than the technology). But, as always, unless you ask...

I am peeved it's not on the C side at Sydney, for example, where I came through a lot, not just the QF (A/B) side, but I guess QF participated in the scheme and it's an intangible QF benefit.

The APEC lane exists on both sides however.

 

[cssaus]

Unless you have sat in front of the cameras and been scanned at some point, I don't think you have the ability to go through the "smartgate", even with the biometric passport. I also heard it was "closed" for new applicatnts at this stage (a funding issue rather than the technology). But, as always, unless you ask...

Reading the info on the customs web site, I understood it to be that the need to sit in front of a camera and have reference images taken was during the trial and before the introduction of ePassports.

If you take a look at the link http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=4420 it says that from December last year the smartgate kiosks were updated to include a passport chip reader which I take to mean that it now reads the chip in the passport and can compare the stored biometric image on the chip with the image that the smartkiosk sees when you stand before it.

I'd be interested in knowing if my assessment of the way it's meant to work is correct.

 

[infoworks]

I may be wrong (I often am), but I understand the system to work on scanning the facial features. You stand in front of the lenses (I shatter them regularly) and it scans and compares to a stored image. Match - green, no match - trapped in the net!

As I read the site:

On 13 December 2004 a passport chip reader was incorporated into a new SmartGate kiosk. This allows SmartGate to use the facial image stored on a chip in the prototype ePassports for matching with the person presenting at the SmartGate kiosk. The prototype ePassport is being trialed by Passports Australia with selected Qantas aircrew.
The trial expansion has meant SmartGate is available at Sydney and Melbourne international airports for use by operating international aircrew from selected airlines, selected adult passengers travelling on Australian passports and selected holders of prototype Australian ePassports.

This suggests prototype passports to me. I doubt if you haven't been scanned, you can use the gate.

 

[danielh]

Yep, I hope that now that the initial flood of ePassport holders are being processed that we would be alowed to opportunity to get Smartgated up.

I should note that an ePassport is not a prerequisite for Smartgate scanning as the bare minimum is a machine readable passport. The actual picture/scan will be stored on some server somewhere. I do not believe that the RFID chip in the passport will be rewritten with the new scan as this will give too much of an 'in' to hackers to change the details. I suspect that the RFID chip is WORM (Write Once, Read Many) only. This is my personal opinion though.

I just hope that with all the new focus on security and speed that more budget will be added for us to be scanned in.

Regards
Daniel