Grabba wins award following CBP pilot

Australia-based biometric firm Grabba has revealed details of an award it won last week following its involvement in a major pilot project at US-based international airports as part of the Biometric Exit (BE) Mobile Experiment.Grabba was presented with the prestigious Award: Homeland Security Week 2015, Technology Innovation of the Year earlier this month in Arlington County, Virginia.That award follows the company being, through wholly owned Subsidiary Grabba, Inc the Company awarded a US$2 million project in September to roll out a second stage Pilot project to be deployed at 10 US based International Airports as part of the BE Mobile Experiment.The BE-Mobile Air Test uses a Grabba Z-5472e-WSQ Biometric and Biographic Data capture device which attaches to a Samsung Galaxy S5 together with a CBP developed software application to capture the biographic and biometric exit data from certain departing alien international travellers.Testing has commenced at the Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and is scheduled to be deployed to nine additional airports over the 12 months to June 2016.The other airports at which the Test is to be deployed are Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York, San Francisco, and Washington-Dulles.The Biometric Exit (BE) Mobile Experiment, is designed to help CBP confirm with certainty that a foreigner traveller has departed the United States. As part of the pilot, CBP officers at the Atlanta Hartsfield International airport will use a handheld device, which includes a fingerprint reader, to record the exit of a foreign national from the US and compare it to the person entry records in order to determine whether the individual has stayed in the US for longer than the allotted duration.In a press statement, the company revealed the background behind it being awarded the contract:The Comprehensive Biometric Exit Program: Air Exit Pilot was first introduced in May 2009. That first Pilot was terminated on July 2, 2009. The original pilot established that the technology used at that time performed successfully but DHS concluded that the then available collection mechanisms used would be extremely resource intensive and very costly to implement long-term or at additional airports, therefore DHS did not expand or extend the 2009 pilot.Enter Grabba International in February 2010 when a member of the internal development team at Customs and Border Protection first contacted Grabba with a question about the possibility that a Grabba device could read the Machine Readable Zone in a Passport. At the time that enquiry was made, the capability requested was not a part of the technology package offered by Grabba, however, within 8 weeks our Business Development Manager in the USA was able to present and demonstrate a Grabba device that established our capability and thus lead to a continuing flow of business transactions between the CBP Division and GrabbaOther recent significant deployments for Grabba have included the Dutch Police for their MEOS (Mobile Effectiveness on the Street) Program, the UK Home Office for their Exit Data Capture program, the Royal Malaysian Police Department for Infringement issuing on the street, the EuroStar high speed rail service at London's St Pancreas Station for their compliance requirements for the UK Home Office Exit Data Capture program, multiple Cruise Ship Companies, Airlines and Tour organisations for Passport and Visa Data Capture “At the gate”.

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