Identity Week Europe brought its best edition yet to the RAI, in Amsterdam, bringing together 3,000 exhibitors, speakers from key organisations and visitors.
The most important event for the identity industry has once again delighted attendees with its biggest audience to date and high praise of thoughtfully organised content, networking opportunities to increase contacts, high quality vendor participation, and regional differences of the most important topics facing
As reviews already come in, one attendee described the Identity Week show as a “rich environment for dialogue” among a “diverse gathering of experts” across “policy, privacy, technical, practical, theoretical and global topics”.
“The best identity event ever attended!” exclaimed one visitor.
“A truly exciting and informative conference!” and “Best event in Europe!”.
“An excellent start to establishing Identity Week in Amsterdam.”
From all our highly credible and knowledgeable speakers, the opening hours across the two-day conference focused on hearing solo presentations from the likes of organisations such as Frontex, the DCMS, EU Parliament and UK Cabinet Office that delivered timelines, updates and revised strategies for implementing the most pressing identity initiatives for 2023-2024.
You could hear a pin drop in the standing-only keynote theatre while Claudio Kavrecic, Frontex revealed the final delivery date for the Entry/Exit system, the extreme humanitarian crisis unfolding with unprecedented numbers of crossings and spoke of the complexity of biometric pilots.
Across 26 member states, many countries are implementing the Entry/Exit system of managing immigration and collecting data from travellers entering the European Union however the UK’s departure in 2016 – quickly dubbed Brexit – has created additional unforeseen challenges of more channel crossings with visa processes being affected.
Burdened by Brexit and crises, an unmanageable humanitarian crisis has emerged for travel organisations. Claudio Kavrecic explained that the eLISA is working hard with the contractor and Commission to find a final date for delivery of the Entry/Exit System however the complexity of this challenge is currently playing out. While being easy to deploy and improving efficiency, biometric kiosks and systems need to be supervised.
He also said there is nothing “more complex than a seaport – airports are far less complex than seaports” to deploy biometric systems that can optimise efficiency.
The process of implementing biometric systems and pilots will be progressive but the complexity around the Entry/Exit programme will affect contracting and require additional training for border guards and physical infrastructure to be prepared to facilitate safe and secure border crossing.
Moving ahead, the Entry/Exit system will be optimised from commission to European level.
In addition, a number of countries, for example, Finland and Croatia are testing the Digital Travel Certificate (DTC) where data will be transferred from the chip of physical passports to mobile phones, sending biometric information matches to border guards prior to travel. When biometric data matches, border guards will be notified.
