The Changing Shape of the Smart Border

How overlapping technology cycles are reshaping border control

Walk around a major border technology exhibition and you can see several generations of the solutions on show side by side. One stand may be demonstrating remote identity verification or a digital travel credential. Another may be showing how a vehicle and its occupants could be processed without anyone stepping outside using ANPR combined with the latest facial recognition. A few more demonstrate a biometric corridor (or at least the concept of one). Elsewhere we see ABC egates with more advanced sensors and in new form factors, whilst pods and totems are now verifying ID-on-the-move. A few metres away, suppliers are discussing passport readers, fingerprint devices and cameras for manual immigration counters. Those base technologies remain essential across much of the world.

That contrast has followed us throughout the research for Valour Consultancy’s new Smart Borders report. We have attended industry events, conducted primary research with border agencies, suppliers and integrators, and tested the scope with people across our network. Their input encouraged us to look beyond visible equipment and examine the hardware, identity systems, traveller information and operating processes that make a border work – and what makes one smart.

I have also watched much of this evolution first-hand. Over nearly two decades, my work has taken me from smart cards, eID and the early deployment of ePassports, through egates and access control, to mobile credentials, digital identity and identity verification. It is a useful vantage point from which to see technologies that once occupied separate markets becoming part of the same border management conversation.

One conclusion became increasingly clear: the smart border market is not moving through a single, orderly transition. It is expanding through overlapping technology cycles. Some countries are building the basic digital and biometric foundations of modern border control. Others are joining front-end automation to national identity, gathering traveller data in advance, patterns of movement and risk systems. Many operate at several levels at once, depending on the checkpoint, mode of travel and traveller group involved.

 

The manual border remains the foundation

The conventional process begins when a traveller presents a passport to an officer. The officer examines the document, checks the traveller’s identity, considers admissibility and decides whether further questions or examination are required. Although the supporting technology has changed considerably, that core judgement has not disappeared.

Discussions about smart borders can move quickly towards eGates, digital credentials and contactless corridors. Yet the agent at a manual counter still handles travellers who are ineligible for automation, failed biometric or document checks, unusual journeys, complex decisions and second-line referrals. Even a highly automated border needs a well-designed route for exceptions.

For countries at an earlier stage of adoption, the priority may be dependable document readers, secure connectivity and consistent electronic records rather than a passport-free journey. These less visible back-end investments establish the foundations for later automation.

 

Technology first strengthened the officer

The first major technology cycle added equipment and information to the manual process. Passport readers reduced data entry. ePassport readers allowed agencies to authenticate the chip and compare its contents with the physical document. Cameras and fingerprint devices enabled biometric capture and matching, while border management and watchlist systems gave officers access to another layer of information that could not be established from the passport alone.

Instead of relying primarily on visual inspection, an officer could make a decision supported by document authentication, biometric comparison and database checks. Agencies also gained more consistent, auditable movement records. This cycle remains active: some are replacing mature estates, while others are introducing these capabilities for the first time.

 

Automation redistributed the work

ABC egates and immigration kiosks formed the next visible cycle. They moved repeatable tasks from the officer to the traveller and the system: reading the passport, capturing a live biometric, checking eligibility, collecting declarations and directing exceptions to a staffed position.

Airports led this development because they channel travellers through controlled queues and fixed processing points. The same operating model is harder to reproduce for a family in a car, passengers on a coach, people crossing on foot or a cruise ship releasing thousands of passengers within a short period. Land and maritime checkpoints also typically lack the controlled environmental conditions that makes the introduction of biometrics easier in airports.

Valour’s research nevertheless indicates continued expansion across the principal hardware categories. The combined installed base of ABC eGates, immigration kiosks and the wider border control equipment covered by the study continues to grow substantially. The mix is changing too: mature products continue to expand or enter replacement cycles, while pods and totems provide more flexible ways to capture biometrics and support officers without automating the entire decision-making process.

This is not automation replacing the officer. Eligible travellers complete routine checks through an egate or kiosk, while officers concentrate on referrals, safeguarding and cases requiring judgement. The quality of that handover is often as important as the speed of the automated lane.

 

The border is moving before the checkpoint

The next cycle changes where processing begins. Advance Passenger Information (API), Passenger Name Record (PNR) data and interactive API (iAPI) provide information about a traveller and their journey before arrival. Electronic travel authorisations (ETAs), eVisas and digital arrival declarations collect further information directly from the traveller. Remote document and facial verification can establish a stronger link between a person and a travel document before they reach an immigration desk.

Recent programmes show how these components are converging. The United Kingdom’s ETA creates a digital permission to travel linked to the passport. South Africa has connected its biometric ETA development to an upgraded electronic movement-control environment. The Philippines Bureau of Immigration reported in September that its operational APIS infrastructure was connected to 49 airlines covering almost all international flight operations. These are different programmes, but they reflect the same direction of travel: more identity, eligibility and risk assessment is taking place before the physical crossing.

Rather than beginning every assessment from scratch, the checkpoint can confirm identity, complete outstanding checks and resolve exceptions. The border becomes a sequence of decisions distributed across the journey rather than a single inspection on arrival.

 

The visible hardware depends on a larger architecture

A traveller sees a passport reader, kiosk or egate. The agency must connect it to movement records, identity data, watchlists, case management, biometric matching and risk systems, while managing privacy, network availability, audit trails and failed checks.

This is why the egate is only the visible part of a smart border. The value of the wider system increasingly depends on orchestration: ensuring that the right data is available, components make consistent decisions and an authorised person can understand how an outcome was reached.

Europe’s Entry Exit System demonstrates both the scale and the difficulty of this transition. It is intended to create a continent-wide electronic and biometric record of entry and exit for relevant travellers. It also illustrates why digitisation does not automatically produce a seamless journey. Enrolment capacity, integration, physical space, traveller behaviour and exception handling can determine whether technology improves the process or simply moves the bottleneck.

 

Airports established the model but other borders may shape the next cycle

Air remains the dominant environment for border control hardware, but land and maritime applications are becoming more important – and present a new commercial opportunity for vendors. The interesting question is not simply whether those locations will adopt more automation, but how the operating model must change.

Singapore offers one of the clearest examples. Its New Clearance Concept combines biometrics, advance information and risk assessment across air, land and sea, while its land checkpoint work is moving towards processing motorcycles and vehicles more effectively. Hong Kong and Macao have expanded facial clearance at high-volume crossings. These are not simple copies of an airport egate: they require different capture points and workflows designed around vehicles or groups.

Biometric corridors and digital travel credentials may eventually extend this model through advance information and identity confirmation while moving. However, concepts, trials and operational deployments are not equivalent – and there remain few fully operational implementations. Standards, government participation, trusted infrastructure, legislation and exception handling must be in place before a demonstration becomes routine processing.

 

Several technology cycles will continue at once

It is tempting to place every country on a neat journey from manual inspection to a fully seamless border. In practice, maturity varies within countries as well as between them. A major airport may combine pre-travel information, biometric eGates and integrated risk assessment, while a remote land crossing in the same country relies on manually operated equipment, portable biometric kits and intermittent connectivity.

Nor does every market follow the same order. A country may implement API-PNR or an ETA before deploying a large eGate estate. A national biometric identity system can improve assurance across all checkpoints without changing what the traveller sees. Conversely, visible automation can be introduced before the underlying systems and data flows are fully integrated.

That uneven development creates several concurrent investment markets: foundational equipment at manual counters, expansion and replacement of automated hardware, and investment in platforms that connect identity, movement and risk information. Future borders are therefore likely to be tiered rather than uniformly contactless, combining manual inspection, assisted processing, kiosks, eGates, mobile preparation and biometric corridors according to the traveller, journey and risk profile.

Many of the most useful insights in our research came from organisations challenging our initial assumptions or explaining why a process that works at one border would fail at another. Do these overlapping technology cycles reflect what you are seeing? Where do you expect the next major shift in border investment: better equipped manual processing, more checkpoint automation, or identity and risk assessment moving further upstream?

Selected references

• European Commission — Entry Exit System
• UK Government — Electronic Travel Authorisation
• Philippines Bureau of Immigration — Border modernisation and APIS expansion
• Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority — New Clearance Concept
• South African Government — Electronic Travel Authorisation

 

 

About Valour Consultancy

Valour Consultancy provides independent market intelligence and consultancy across airport and border technologies. We work with technology providers, systems integrators, operators, government agencies and investors, combining primary research, industry engagement and market modelling to explain how these markets are developing. Our Smart Borders 2026: The Future Evolution of Land, Sea and Air Borders report, publishing shortly, examines the hardware, biometric and identity platforms, advance traveller-information systems and back-end platforms (ABIS, API-PNR, border management systems and EES) and operating models reshaping land, sea and air borders.