The Home Office ambition is to have all visitors and migrants provide their biometrics ahead of travel to the UK. This work seeks to offer those who do not currently require a visa the opportunity to self-enrol their fingerprints remotely, enabling identity and security checks to be carried out before travel and as an integral part of the consideration process for immigration permission.
The JSaRC-led BSEFT project team has been working with biometric technology companies on behalf of Future Borders Immigration System, to drive the development of app-based solutions. They have also hosted bespoke feasibility trials to test the effectiveness of developing biometric capture capabilities and assess market maturity for biometric smartphone apps.
The trials evaluated how effectively individuals’ biometrics could be enrolled using different technology companies’ solutions and assessed user satisfaction levels and perceptions of experience. Solutions were also assessed on their ability to detect false or spoof fingerprint presentations. In 2021, the Joint Security and Resilience Centre (JSaRC) conducted research on the key economic and labour market data relating to the private security sector as defined by ONS (Office for National Statics). This revealed that Security businesses are marginally more likely to report gaps in the skills of their workers than other businesses operating in England and Wales.