Three international Mexican airports — those in Mexico City, Cancun and Los Cabos — have installed 100 new kiosks that are to use biometric technology that will capture fingerprints to verify the identities of the 8 million arrivals anticipated in the first year of their operation.
SITA, the multinational information technology company providing IT and telecommunication services to the air transport industry, is providing the automated border control kiosks that are to securely identify Mexican citizens entering the country and those non-citizens who do not require a visa for entry.
While SITA’s announcement of the installations was made official near to the time that U.S. President Donald Trump announced the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, a SITA spokesperson said that there was no correlation between the two announcements.
The kiosks are part of SITA’s iBorders Border Management integrated solution that has been developed, according to the company, “to improve the efficiency of borders by targeting resources at higher-risk travelers while speeding up processing for the low-risk majority.”
The passengers will be required to have their fingers scanned and once their identities are verified against the database of the National Institute of Immigration, they are to be given an all clear to enter the country. This process, SITA reports, is anticipated to reduce the time passengers spend in line by 40 percent based on its experience in other countries.
Similar self-service kiosks already have been used by citizens from the U.S., Canada and visa-waiver countries entering the United States to complete their customs declaration forms on touch-screens as well as have their passports read and their fingerprints and facial images captured.
Elbson Quadros, SITA vice president, Latin America, said in the announcement, “This is an exciting development in Mexico. The country is well known for its tourism and our automated border control kiosks will improve the experience for passengers at these airports.”
Migration agents also are expected to benefit from the new technology. “Automating the entry of domestic and foreign passengers who do not require a visa is achieved by capturing biometic data (fingerprints, photography and scanning the passport), which quadruples the capacity of passenger attention for each migration agent,” said Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, secretary general, SCT, the Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transportation.
SITA has been at the forefront of providing customs-related services to ease international travel. For instance, JetBlue uses SITA’s biometric cameras at Boston‘s Logan International Airport for its “border exit checks.” Although it doesn’t use the kiosks, the cameras enable JetBlue to initiate its “board in a snap” program allowing passengers the option of stepping up to a camera that verifies their identities without having to show a boarding pass, passport or any other papers.
A global air transport information and communications company, SITA is based in Geneva, and operates in more than 200 countries. Its customers include airlines, airports, airfreight and many other companies involved in the air transport industry. It’s North American headquarters is based in Atlanta.
For more information about SITA’s capabilities, send an email to Brenda Flinter, senior manager, corporate communications and media relations at brenda.flinter@sita.aero or Caroline Rose at Caroline.Rose@sita.aero.