Last week, we invited document experts from Western Balkan countries and Moldova to meet in Warsaw to strengthen our cooperation to fight document fraud.
Border officials need real-time tools to help spot fraudulent travel and identity documents, prevent the movement of criminals and terrorists, and identify people at risk. One of such tools at their disposal in the Frontex-INTERPOL Electronic Library Document System (FIELDS).
Experts from Albania, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Moldova discussed the establishment of a new regional working group to boost the exchange of knowledge, expertise, and experience in the fight against documents forgery, as well as the integration of FIELDS within their national systems.
FIELDS is a joint initiative of Frontex and Interpol. Its goal is to merge their pre-existing services and products to support frontline police officers and border guards with an easy and friendly document-related information sharing tool.
As of 1 April this year, FIELDS became operational and it is now recognised as a mechanism for combating document fraud that significantly improves border guards’ capacities to detect false documents and prevent irregular arrivals, bringing together INTERPOL’s technical capabilities and systems with Frontex’s know-how and excellence on travel and identity documents.
“The active contribution of Western Balkan countries and Moldova is vital for the creation of content to further populate FIELDS”, said Ana Cristina Jorge, Director of the Frontex Operational Response Division. “The creation of a Western Balkan and Moldova regional working group would therefore mark a key milestone in the implementation of the operational phase of the system.”
To help with document authentication, Frontex experts developed Quick Check Cards which show key detection points of a given type of document. Those detection points are selected based on the most recent known forgery trends and modus operandi, as well as on the technical specification of the document.
As it is essential that all authorities have the skills and knowledge necessary to produce information to populate the system in the right form and according to the required standards, the first workshop focuses primarily on sharing of know-how for the creation and validation of the quick-check cards.
