From 2022, the Government of Iceland will introduce border surveillance technology developed by IDEMIA, which will record entry and exit details for any person outside the Schengen Zone who wishes to visit Iceland.
The new system, which protects, among other things, the external borders of the Schengen Zone, will record the entry and exit data of travellers through fingerprints and facial portraits. The data will then be added to the EU database and will be kept for three years, notes SchengenVisaInfo.com.
The primary aim of this measure is to detect whether travellers are remaining in the Schengen Region for a longer period of time than is allowed.
The Chief of Police of the National Police Border Division, Jón Pétur Jónsson, stressed that it could be used "in the event that any person who does not obtain any identification is not identified by the police, by comparing their photo with what is in the database, it will be possible to identify them."
"From the beginning of 2019, the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, the Metropolitan Police and the Sudurnes District Police have been working in close cooperation with Isavia on the implementation of the EES in Iceland," said Jonsson.
Iceland's authorities began procurement procedures in September 2019, while IDEMIA was later chosen as its partner to introduce EES in the region.
The police and Isavia have high hopes of working with IDEMIA to establish solutions that will boost border security and the experience of travelers," said Jón Pétur Jónsson in this regard."
Iceland will comply, following the example of other European Union countries, with the EU Entry/Exit Framework (EU-EES) regulations. The new system will take effect in 2022 and will accommodate approximately 10 million passengers annually.
In June, EU-LISA awarded the contract for the delivery of a new mutual Biometric Matching System (sBMS) to a consortium of IDEMIA and Sopra Steria, thus taking another step towards the establishment of the Entry/Exit System.
Also in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, back in August, the EU authorities declared that they were seeking, as soon as possible, to develop new protection mechanisms for the European Union.