(Seychelles News Agency) - A newly launched biometric corridor at the Seychelles International Airport enables faster, contactless health screening of inbound travellers to the island nation, a top govnerment official said.

Designed by Travizory, a border security firm, the biometric corridor features state-of-the art cameras and biometric engines powered by artificial intelligence to match new arrivals to Seychelles' database of authorised travellers.

According to the Ministry of Transport, with the launch of the biometric corridor, Seychelles became the second country in the world, after the UAE, to use walk-through biometrics at its borders.  

"With a match time of less than one second per traveller, the bio corridor screens an average of 30 travellers per minute, enabling a wide-body aircraft with 300 travellers to be processed in under 10 minutes," the Ministry said on Wednesday.

The biometric corridor, which is fully integrated with the Seychelles Islands Travel Authorisation system, checks temperatures, validates if each traveller matches an approved valid authorisation through state-of-the-art facial recognition technology, and classifies travellers for handling based on pre-departure risk assessments.

Previously, travellers had to present their unique Travel Authorisation QR codes to health officers on arrival, either on a smartphone or on printed paper. With the installation of the new bio corridor, travellers can now simply walk through and will be directed straight to immigration, sent for medical examination, or sent for quarantine, based on pre-departure assessments.

"Our new state-of-the-art, contactless bio corridor is the latest in a series of initiatives we have introduced to make the transit experience through our ports of entry, seamless and of unrivaled quality," said the Principal Secretary for Civil Aviation, Alan Renaud.

"Using your face as a passport will become a much more common feature of the travel experience in the future, a trend that can only accelerate as countries try to mitigate risk and limit human interaction post-COVID. We made the right choice with our partner, and I am incredibly proud that our archipelago is now the second country in the world to leverage biometrics on arrival– a historic achievement for a small island State," he added.

Renaud said that using your face as a passport will become a much more common feature of the travel experience in the future. (Ministry of Transport) Photo License: CC-BY

On his side, the CEO of Travizory, Renaud Irminger, Travizory CEO, said: "We are excited to install our state-of-the-art bio corridor in the Seychelles, to aid and improve COVID-screening on arrival. This groundbreaking technology will completely overhaul existing health processes - delivering a paperless and contactless experience for all travellers entering the country."

Travizory is a Swiss-based technology company founded by senior executives uniquely combining air transport industry, biometrics, mobile, border security and border management expertise.

Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, started using its platform in September last year to help streamline security clearance and simplify the process of entry.

Since the island nation reopened its borders to all visitors in March, visitor arrivals are continuously on the increase and the forecast by the Ministry of Finance is over 160,000 by December 31.

Tourism is the top contributor to the economy of Seychelles with a population of 99,000.

The Minister for Transport, Antony Derjacques, said that "with tourism levels soaring almost to 2019 levels, it is more vital than ever that we make use of technology, and that we implement products, and introduce processes, that focus not only on fast screening of travellers, but, far more importantly, assure their health and safety during their journeys."