VisionBox taps Unisys to assist building biometric SmartGates for Home Affairs

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Border technology provider VisonBox has tapped digital workplace provider Unisys to assist in building automated ‘SmartGates’ at New Zealand’s Auckland International Airport and Australia’s 10 international airports.

The SmartGates use biometric verification data, such as facial recognition, to cross-reference passengers’ with their passports, removing the need for manual passport checks by immigration officials.  

Unisys will assist VisonBox in building 93 SmartGates under a $46 million contract with Home Affairs that expires in 2026. The contract was extended for six years from a 2015 $18 million contract. 

The SmartGates will be built for departures in Adelaide, Avalon, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Darwin, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney international airports. 

“We look forward to partnering with Vision-box to ensure the automated security gates are available to facilitate travellers departing Auckland and the 10 Australian airports,” Unisys Asia Pacific vice president Andrew Whela said in a statement.

“Unisys brings Vision-box a unique combination of local service desk and support capabilities alongside current experience working with border security agencies, airlines and airports spanning biometric authentication solutions, baggage reconciliation systems and air cargo.”

Last year Unisys renewed a contract for an undisclosed “multi-million dollar” sum for six years with the Board of Airline Representatives Australia to provide a baggage reconciliation system at international airports in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Perth, Adelaide and the Gold Coast.

The managed service agreement included network infrastructure and security architecture; training; end-user device management and onsite support.

Unisys also entered a $16.4 million contract to build cloud infrastructure for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in 2019. 

Home Affairs paused a trial of VisonBox’s biometric smart gates for arrivals in 2019 after the product faltered and failed to return good matching results. 

Home Affairs went back to using existing IDEMIA (previously Morpho) airport arrivals smart gates at the cost of $30 million.