Bulgaria Vision Box Tender

Vision-Box a world leader in biometrics seamless travel automated border control and digital identity solutions has announced the launch of a Frontex awarded trial to implement an innovative pilot project at two land borders in Bulgaria in the context of the EU EntryExit System EES. The EES is a landmark framework set to replace traditional border controls of Third-Country Nationals with interoperable digital data processing and automated biometric data collection in 2022. The Frontex pilot which went live in June 2021 in Bulgaria in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior and the Border Police will be for coaches cars and pedestrians at entry of Kapitan Andreevo BCP from Turkey for phase 1 and exit at Kalotina BCP to Serbia for phase 2.The implementation of the EES will influence the flow of travellers and the technology deployed at the border to collect the required data in order to cope with the variety of sites and related complexities. This effect will possibly be more important at the EU land border crossings which are more constrained environments as compared with airports and ports as many travellers arrive in their vehicles. Therefore the introduction of EES will have a significant impact on travellers flow at those border crossing points BCP.The purpose of the pilot project is to deliver a Self-Service Enrolment System to enable travellers to perform a self-service collection of travel document data biometric data and other information e.g. questionnaire on entry conditions. It also executes real-time intensive queries into the Bulgarian national border control systems in combination with an EU EES backend simulator. After the Enrolment travellers are invited to go to an open corridor and be identified On-the-Move to directly cross the Border or to be redirected to the manual control booth to be verified by a border guard with last generation Coppernic handheld technology. The secured linkage and encrypted communications with the national and EU border control systems performing border checks on all travellers and EES registrationverification on third country nationals is jointly performed by Vision-Box and the respective border agencies.The EES Frontex pilot applies to short stay visa and visa-exempt third country nationals as well as EU citizens entering or leaving the European Union.The pilot ecosystem enrolment kiosks biometric corridor handheld tablets is powered by Vision-Boxs award-winning Orchestra Identity Border Management Platform. Orchestra removes the time-consuming task of manual data collection and verification meaning that travellers do not need to physically interact with touchpoints or manually exchange travel documents and biometrics at counters. The whole process leverages identity and biometrics tokenization to digitize the operation in a touchless manner. This also reduces long queuing at checkpoints and curtails crowding at clearance hotspots allowing travellers to navigate the border a lot quicker and safely with biometric recognition technology. Facial recognition biometrics offers the highest level of convenience for traveller identity proofing in compliance with the EU regulations combined with touchless fingerprint sensors for combined verification against the EU EES biometric backend systems. The solution drives significant improvements over traditional manual and touch-based identification procedures in terms of hygiene accuracy and privacy protections.The powerful Orchestra Service Platform is compliant with EU GDPR regulations through its unique Privacy-by-Design certification. It operates under user-centric business rules and is the kernel of the advanced management of Identity proofing and Flow Monitoring of traveller processes at the border. The platforms powerful capability allows it to process the full extent of national border passenger volume thanks to its future-proof scalable design and resilient architecture.For this pilot delivery Vision-Box has hired the services of PwC Luxembourg in order to help sustain the definition of the use cases their testing and overall pilot reporting. In addition Bulgarian system integrator Global Sat is supporting Vision-Box in the deployment of the solution on the ground and its maintenance during the overall 6 months operation of the two pilot phases at the two different land borders.Speaking about the pilot project Jeff Lennon Vice President Strategic Sales Global Partnerships at Vision-Box said We are thrilled to run this Frontex pilot for exploring the future of EES in Bulgaria and Europe in partnership with the Ministry of Interior and the Border Police as long-time customers PwC and Global Sat. This innovative undertaking will allow all of us to stress-test ground-breaking technology in a very challenging environment yet at a small scale. It will also help us establish the foundations for expanding the technology at national level for any type of land border environment minimizing the footprint of the solution at stake while maximizing the process efficiency for the border guards and the travellers. This is also a great opportunity for understanding the flow of border-crossings at two of the largest EU land border sites to effectively expand our solutions in the EU context for Smart Borders as we are already doing in Finland since 2019 among other EES projects with additional member states.Serge Hanssens Partner at PwC for Smart Borders said Frontex and Bulgarians authorities collaborate in testing the European Entry Exit System EES at two critical land border control points in Europe. This is a unique opportunity and milestone to try out these new processes in real conditions. PwC Luxembourg is so pleased to be part of the adventure supporting Frontex and Bulgarians authorities to make the EES deployment a success securing the entry and exit to the European Schengen Area of all third country nationals.