Australias Department

of Home Affairs has provided iPhones to its Border Force officers to perform

fingerprint biometric checks of foreign travellers at all international

airports, according to iTnews.

The smartphones were

trialed at Brisbane International Airport in 2017, and have now been rolled out

to an unknown number of the 6,000 ABF officers, to perform identify

confirmation in less than 60 seconds. The program is called Enhanced Biometrics

at the Border (EBatB), and replaces bulky biometric scanners which the Force

had previously used. A portable fingerprint scanner plugs into the bottom of

the devices to allow checks of travelers flagged by other airports for further

checks. The check returns passport, travel document, and visa information of

travelers, as well as whether they appear among the 700,000 people on the departments

alert list.

The Australian Signals Directorate has only approved Apples iOS for its

cryptographic evaluation program, though the agency is currently evaluating

Samsungs custom Android OS for Galaxy S9 and S9+. Australia has performed

biometric checks for visitors from more than 40 countries for several years.

The country has not yet implemented the new biometric smart gates from

Vision-Box it plans to use for arrivals, although it did recently move forward

with a departure gates deal with the company.