Russia intros self-service passport control
Test-period to be introduced next year at airports and some sea ports, according to the border control authorities.
Most frequent travelers to Russia have some bad experiences queuing up-front of the airports immigration control-desks waiting for ages. Imagine a new desk, where you place your passport in the scanner yourself, cross-check the biometric with a finger-print or face-camera, and then; a gate door that opens after a few seconds and a voice saying “Welcome to Russia.”
Such scenario can become reality sooner than you can imagine. Already in 2011 the automatic biometric passport control system will be tested.
After last week’s board meeting in Rosgranitsa, Russia’s border control service headed by FSB, it was announced that the system will be tested in 2011 and can be taken into permanent use at several border crossing points already from 2012.
Head of Rosgranitsa, Vladimir Mochalov, told RIA Novosti that that Russia is just following what Finland, England and Portugal are already doing at their airports in Helsinki, London and Lisbon.
Read also: The Norwegian Barents Secretariat’s view on border-crossings between Norway and Russia in the publication Barents Review (pdf).
Interviewed by Rossiskaya Gazeta, the head of FSB Frontier service, Vladimir Pronichev said people crossing into Russia can go through such passport control within some 10 to 15 seconds.
Similar automatic biometric passport control systems are in use at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in Finland. By the end of the year Finland is planning to test the system also at its land border to Russia at Vaalimaa.
The system will only work for people holding a biometric passport. Other passports will still have to be checked manually, and the passport control authorities will still have the option to do random manual controls of everyone using the automatic system.
It is not said when the automatic passport control checks will be introduced at any of Russia’s border to Finland and Norway within the Barents Region, or if the system will be introduced at the airports in Murmansk or Arkhangelsk.
In 2008, Russia started to issue biometric passports. Biometric passports contain a microchip for digital finger or retina prints in addition to a special photograph of the holder.
