The Police and Border Guard Board is joining an innovative pilot programme to gather contactless face and fingerprint biometrics within the e-residency programme in Estonia. Hannes Lember, a Development Expert, tells us all about this project and his participation in June for Identity Week Europe 2026.
Lember reveals the project, in collaboration with partners SMIT, will begin app development soon following Infotech securing procurement.
During the course of the interview, he also touched upon their approaches to border management and what advice he would give to other agencies looking to modernise their identity border management systems.
“We have ABC gates”. I think everyone has (ABC gates), working simultaneously with officers on the spot, he said. “We are looking at how to make the gathering of biometrics quicker, the fine-tuning of our systems.. And really looking in depth how often biometric quality scores are”.
The procurement process of ABC gates has been “quite innovative” accounting for the future of Digital Travel Credential programmes, e -licences and wallets that will need to adapt to the new gates.
We also asked:
Are you thinking about the technical challenges with integrating biometric data and data from legacy systems to the new technology?
What innovations have arisen from Estonia’s approach of cross-border biometric data exchange. What’s the principle of protecting data in Estonia compared to other states?
The border guard is constantly audited regarding the use of biometrics written into law. They conduct internal audits as well as being reviewed by the National Audit Department which watches over the process in this field.
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