Kathmandu, May 8

The Department of Immigration has requested the government to instal biometric e-gates, capable of identifying or verifying faces, at Tribhuvan International Airport.

Talking to THT, Director General of DoI Deepak Kafle said, “Although facial recognition systems were introduced a decade ago in developed countries, we are still lobbying the government to instal such a system at the only international airport in the country.”

Kafle also said that the department had requested the Ministry of Finance to provide necessary budget for procuring the machine. “If everything goes as planned, we will have the system installed at the airport within this year.”

After the introduction of Machine Readable Passports, the TIA has installed a passport readable machine, that verifies information in the passport but does not identify the passport bearers.

According to DG Kafle, criminals are taking advantage of this loophole to get out of the country on others’ passports.

The new biometric e-gate would verify the face of passengers along with their passports simultaneously. The machine will also send information of travellers to the National Information Technology Centre at the Ministry of Home Affairs.