Home Affairs seeks partners for 11-airport biometric verification rollout

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is looking for IT partners to support the rollout of biometric capture and verification capabilities including camera hardware, software and support services to the departure and arrival primary lines at 11 international airports.

The rollout is part of DHA's plan to ensure identity verification of the approximately 11 million travellers it expects to arrive in Australia per year post the COVID-19 international travel downturn.

Biometrically verifying "eligible air travellers who enter and leave Australia can only be achieved by implementing biometric-enabled cameras on the primary line to collect and electronically verify the identity of travellers who do not use SmartGates", the request for information states.

In a request for tender published on 30 November, DHA said the successful partner will need to provide a solution covering hardware, software and support services as part of a rollout expected to be completed by July 2026.

Partners will need to supply:

Biometric camera hardware including cabling
Biometric capture, quality checking and verification software with any associated licenses
Traveller side user interface (hardware and software)
Services integration layer/wrapper for biometric services
Mounting rig for biometric capture unit (if required)
Physical installation of biometric camera and mounting rig (if required), hardware and software
Support and maintenance services for biometric camera hardware, software and service provider integrations

The partner's solution must be able to capture live facial images, select passport images and compare them against facial images, perform quality assessments of images, as well as show biometric data on user interfaces used by airport staff.

Physical installation will take place in the following international airports: