MiTAC Information Technology Corp.
United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior-General Department of Residency and Foreign Affairs
INDEX Trade Co., LLC, UAE Emaratech (Emarat Technology Solutions), SYNNEX Technology International Corporation, MiTAC Communication Co., Ltd.
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) of the Ministry of the Interior offers a selfservice“Automatic Immigration Clearance System” (eGate) that combines biometric technology with computer automation to speed travelers through immigration process with greater ease and efficiency than ever.
MiTAC installed eGates for passenger entry & exit border control at seaports and in airports islandwide, and at KinMen harbor. Functions of AICS include eGate, finger printing, facial recognition, passport reader, fake passport identification, APIS/airline, webAPIS/ ship, APP, early warning of watch list. NIA’s automated comparison and inspection system controls egate functions. According to the NIA’s report, passenger identification accuracy rate of the eGates implemented in Taiwan is 98% with a total processing time of less than 12 seconds.
The eGate system speeds up the immigration clearance process and enhances the border security. A total of 3,417,886 travelers enrolled and about 34,436,433 entries and exits had been made through eGates, by June 30, 2016.
《Figure: e-Gate Processing Flow 》
With Taiwan’s “Automatic Immigration Clearance System” (eGate System) implementation experience, MiTAC has expanded the market to the Middle East, and successfully implemented the eGate system in Dubai International Airport and DubaiOman border. The excellent performance and smooth operation have greatly improved the immigration process time.
1. Dubai International Airport Handicapped eGate System: After the eGate system was adopted, the labor cost is lower and immigration process time is faster compared to manual processing. The immigration process time by using eGate is shortened to 15 seconds and the accuracy rate is 99%. Dubai International Airport is the busiest airport in the world, with 7*24 operations, 6,500 weekly scheduled flights, and annual traffic of 78 million passengers in 2015. Passenger numbers are projected to surpass 103.5 million by 2020.
2. eBorders at the DubaiOman border in Hatta for those travelling by road: Hatta Border crossing is one of the busiest borders in the world. Hatta land border port is the largest gateway from Oman to Dubai through which there are more than 200,000 passengers passing between the UAE and Oman on a monthly basis. In order to provide better services and speed up the inspection process, the UAE launched an eBorder project to establish a new Hatta Border Port Crossing system. The eBorder has shortened the average immigration processing time down to 1520 seconds compared with 3 hours by manual processing.
Language and culture: Due the language and culture barriers, there are some difficulties between MiTAC team and the customer, including communication, information exchange, product and technical specifications explanation, design concept, and application practical performance. With different government resources, such as Economic and Cultural Offices of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan External Trade Development Council, and other local relations to assist MiTAC arranging presentations and coordinations. MiTAC team also strengthens the communication frequency with the customer, for example, mails, documents and meetings, and also spend more time in study the local regulation and culture. Therefore, MiTAC team can fully understand the local regulation, culture and 6 customer’s needs, to maintain good customer relations and has successfully implemented the system with the customer’s well-appreciation.
Application and technology: The applicants need to meet the height limit for a camera to capture the facial recognition while accessing the e-Gate, however, the handicapped persons in wheelchairs cannot meet the height limitation. Therefore, MiTAC developed a special gate for the handicapped persons, and adjusted the camera’s mounting position, to successfully overcome the height restrictions.
Picture 1. Showcased Dubai International Airport Handicapped eGate in 2011 Dubai GITEX Exhibition.
Picture2. Showcased Dubai International Airport Handicapped eGate in 2011 Dubai GITEX Exhibition. 7
Picture 3. eBorders at the DubaiOman border in Hatta for those travelling by road. The system processes the car license plate recognition, database comparison, and traveller’s ID identification when the vehicles enter the Automatic Immigration Clearance zone.