EU research

At the end of June, Frontex participated in the final demonstration of the D4FLY project, a research and innovation project funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme. It focuses on enhancing the quality and efficiency of identity verification at border crossings by providing faster and more secure border control solutions.  

The demonstration day aimed to give an overview of the techniques developed in the D4FLY project for the improvement of border crossing and the verification processes. 

D4FLY has been exploring, developing, and validating new technologies to augment the current capabilities and capacities of border authorities in countering emerging threats in document and identity verification (e.g., forged documents, impostor fraud, morphed faces) at manual and highly automated border crossing points at land, air, and sea. 

The solutions were tested during two scenarios: one in an automated border post and the other, in a coach where border guards were verifying identities in a crowded confined space.

The demonstration participants pre-enrolled using a specifically designed kiosk and then passed through a biometric corridor. During the enrolment, the passport was scanned by the kiosk and different cameras captured biometric features (2D, 3D and thermal face, iris and somatotype features). Encrypted reference data was stored in a database. A smartphone was used as a “carrier of identity” while passing through the corridor. The sensors installed in the corridor area captured participant’s biometrics, compared them with those stored in the database and either confirmed or rejected the border crossing to a border guard carrying a tablet as border check equipment. 

Two types of masks and contact lenses with fake iris prints, and passport with a morphed photograph were successfully detected as fraud. 

Frontex will continue to follow the project’s developments. For more details, please refer to the project website at https://d4fly.eu/ or the Frontex section on EU Research https://frontex.europa.eu/future-of-border-control/eu-research/horizon-projects/.