The new Automated Border Control solution at RIOgaleão – Tom Jobim International Airport is almost ready to go live and accelerate border control processes. From this month on, Brazilian citizens will be able to use self-service ABC eGates to cross the borders when arriving or departing, enjoying a stress-free experience.

Automated Border Control in replacement or reinforcement of legacy manual procedures is the trend at the most advanced and renowned airports around the world, following the need to improve security, boost efficiency, enlarge the capacity and offer a modern experience to today’s demanding, tech-savvy passengers.

Brazil has not fallen behind – on the contrary: the country has been on the edge of innovation as far as advanced Border control solutions are concerned, with Guarulhos, Viracopos and now RIOgaleão – Tom Jobim International Airport adopting groundbreaking self-service technology based on biometrics to modernize processes and streamline the passenger flow. Today, more than 70% of the country’s immigration processes are now relying on Vision-Box integrated ABC solutions.
Tom Jobim International Airport registered an astounding number of 17 million passengers in 2015, being the main airport serving the touristic Rio de Janeiro, the second most populous city in Brazil. The busy international airport has been involved in modernizing the infrastructure, namely in implementing innovative technologies that will capacitate the operator to process more passengers in a secure, confident and smooth way.
As a result, this month will bring a significant upgrade for Brazilians using the airport: any national above 18 years old holding an electronic passport will be able to cross immigration and emigration control through state-of-the-art Automated Border Control eGates. The integrated solution is being deployed by Vision-Box in Terminal 2 – where the majority of international airlines are based – and will offer passport authenticity checks as well as facial biometric verification of passengers through an automated self-service process.
Designed by Vision-Box, the advanced ABC solution is based on self-service biometric eGates that will validate the passengers’ passport, capture a live facial photo according to the highest quality and security international standards, and compare the facial image stored in the chip of the passengers’ passport against the live one, to make sure that they are the genuine owner of the document. In addition, the system is connected in real-time to the Federal Police SATI backend system that checks each transaction and guarantees that all passengers going through the process are not of interest.
As opposed to the manual passenger control typically performed by the Federal Police, the eGates offers a quick, totally self-service experience to eligible passengers, who will encounter user-centric interfaces with simple and clear instructions. This process allows the identification of the passenger in a few seconds, thus relieving the stressful experience of endless queuing times.
Leidivino Natal da Silva, Country Director of Vision-Box Brazil already foresees the staggering advantages in flow management optimization:
“The conventional manual immigration control process usually takes some minutes per passenger. Vision-Box ABC eGates reduce passenger processing time to only a few seconds! That’s the necessary time to perform the appropriate validations and clear a legitimate passenger. Why keep passengers waiting in line if technology can give us a hand? vb i-match™ eGates combine a customer-centric design and a unique human-to-machine experience, which will help cut down waiting times and offer an empowering experience to passengers. Of course, the most reliable identification technology is there to support the Federal Police to ensure security procedures in the most efficient way”.
In fact, a powerful common-use software platform is responsible for the orchestration of the border control infrastructure, passenger flow monitoring and metrics, privacy responsible data transfers and offers a real-time view of every traveler identification process. The Federal Police is thus able to remotely monitor every clearance process at the eGates and take immediate action in case of an exceptional situation. For example, if the passport is part of a database of stolen documents or the passenger belongs to a watch list, the Police receive an alert and may instantly react accordingly.
This represents a significant improvement in the efficiency of an airport’s border control processes. The future-proof solution is perfectly aligned with the Airport’s improvement strategies for operations, security and efficiency.
Alexandre Villeroy, IT Manager of RIOgaleão states:
“RIOgaleão is becoming an international reference concerning operations, and access optimization is one of the many actions we have been pursuing in order to enhance the passenger experience. We believe the rising passenger numbers is definitely a trend and we want to ensure that the Airport is ready to optimize any demand with comfort and safety.”
Leidivino Natal adds:

“The adoption of automated immigration processes is the first step towards today’s vision of the digital airport, in which data is crucial for reaching high levels of security, efficiency and non-aviation revenue. Tom Jobim International Airport will be reaching this amazing milestone in June and we hope that our collaboration will expand the innovation to further passenger touchpoints, enlarging the potential of the orchestration platform to comprise managed services for airports, airlines and government, build powerful business intelligence and offering a superb end-to-end passenger-centric experience.”