PORT MORESBY (EMTV) – Papua New Guinea now has the software to detect fake passports.
The Papua New Guinea Immigration and Citizenship Authority has been given the software through the International Organisation for Migration, funded by the Department of Home Affairs Australia.
This will ensure PNG cuts down on transnational crime.
Within 10 seconds, a person can be identified as being in possession of a fraudulent passport document.
Developed by the International Organisation of Migration “the Verifier Travel Document and Bearer” is a software and a workstation, which, uses facial recognition features to compare with the original passport photo on file that can be located using the passport number.
When an immigration officer suspects a fraudulent passport, or the person looks different, he will be asked to move into the interview room, stand in front of a camera and his photo is run through the system, he may have a beard or a different look, but if the software does analyses of facial features and measurements and gives the result in percentage, it would then be up to the Immigration Officer to make the call on the final result.
The Papua New Guinea Immigration and Citizenship Authority trained officers and were given certificates to operate the two computers, one in the departures, and the other in the arrivals.
With the workstation and software in place PNG will also have access to the IOM Document Examination Support Centre in Bangkok which provides guidance and advice in locating and verifying questioned travel documents.
Papua New Guinea is the first country in the Pacific to have the software and the 17th country in the Asia Pacific region.
