The event combined keynote presentations and a joint practitioner-Agency-industry panel discussion with smaller workshops on topics of special interest, including:
Advancing large-scale IT for border control
- How to, in a scalable manner, manage flow control to ensure reliable queries at variable rates from different users and with variable priorities in order to ensure high reliability and high availability, particularly with biometric data – status and trends
- Advanced technologies to buffer data transmission in case of system or network failure. These could be applicable in mobile devices to cope with mobile network failure or be implemented in fixed systems at national level to overcome lost connections with a central server.
- Architectures for using multi-modal biometrics at large-scale to improve accuracy and to reduce FTE rates
- Suggestions for the reliable storage of biometric and biographic data to ensure fast retrieval of images and data
Situational awareness / predictive analysis
- Using input and output of large-scale IT systems to enhance situational awareness and improve predictive analysis regarding border crossing
Hardware and software - performance and innovation
- Reliable statistics regarding performance of biometrics in large-scale deployments.
- How to quantify the reliability of/level of confidence in a match, especially in a 1:n search using different biometric modalities, alone or in combination, or biometrics with variable quality. This should also consider the use of biographic information.
- Binning or other methods to reduce search size in 1:n searching, using biographic or other information.
- Ensuring implementation of standardised software to avoid vendor lock-in.
- How to eliminate the 'other race effect' in facial recognition.
- How to enrol fingerprints or face in outdoor conditions – in strong sunlight or in cold weather conditions.
- Using facial recognition and iris recognition together – operational examples and possible applications.
- The future of mobile devices for rapid and convenient biometric enrolment.
- Secure communication from mobile devices to national systems
Fraud and spoofing
- Hardware- and software-based counter-spoofing approaches that are recommended for implementation in a border control environment
- How to deploy self-service kiosks for biometric enrolment in an unsecured area in a secure manner
Use of alternative biometrics
- Use of behavioural biometrics at borders
- Combining fingerprints with finger vein recognition
- Suggestions for any alternative biometrics that should be considered in border control going forward
