Self-serve passport gates 'easy to cheat'

Self-service technology used by travellers to pass through immigration at Australian airports is unreliable and impersonators can easily cheat the system, an expert warns. One million passengers have now used the bio-metric SmartGate self-process Customs system at airports in Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. SmartGate takes a photo of a traveller's face and, using facial recognition technology, matches it with the digitised image stored in their ePassport Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor says the system has made processing through passport control simpler and more convenient for travellers. "The popularity of SmartGate is really encouraging and we expect usage figures to continue to increase as more travellers take advantage of the self-processing option," he said. "In the last three months alone, more than 330,000 travellers have used SmartGate at airports across Australia." But visiting fellow at Australian National University, Roger Clarke, says the SmartGate system has "been a problem from the very beginning".