Sagem Défense Sécurité is showcasing its latest biometrics techniques for airport security, a global market headed for fast-paced growth.

Sagem Défense Sécurité is one of the few companies today to cover all aspects of biometric access control, from sensors and workstations to data processing algorithms. “Along with our proven expertise as a systems integrator, we have also gathered significant feedback from operational security systems,” says Thierry Rabaud, head of the Transportation and Access Control department at Sagem Défense Sécurité.

Since July 1, 2004, staff at Paris area airports have been issued badges that also contain a chip with biometric information (digital fingerprints). Each time they pass through an control station to reach a restricted area, their badge is read, identified by its biometric data and a photo of the badge-holder is displayed on a screen. The guard only has to check that the photo matches the person in front of him.

Sagem Défense Sécurité’s system offers two major advantages: it simplifies and speeds up staff movements, since they no longer have to show an ID card, and enhances security.

Over 140,000 people are using this system, which is now logging some 34,000 passages a day at the Orly and Charles-de-Gaulle airport control stations. “This is undoubtedly the largest biometrics application to date!” notes Rabaud.

Pilot project

Sagem Défense Sécurité is also developing a pilot project dubbed “Pégase” (Pegasus), being trialed in terminal 2F at Charles-de-Gaulle airport from early June to the end of the year. Any passenger can request a personalized card from the French border police, along with the passport, which contains his or her digital fingerprints. With this card, the passenger can then independently pass customs control to enter or leave the country. Passengers go through a gateway which is specially outfitted not only to read the cards and fingerprints, but also to detect fraud (several people trying to pass at once, fake fingerprints, etc.).

“Digital fingerprint reading is a very reliable technique, and we have more than 20 years of experience in this area,” notes Rabaud. At the same time, he points out that Sagem Défense Sécurité is also involved in other types of biometrics, including facial recognition and iris analysis. In fact, the main airports in Britain (Heathrow 2 and 4, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham) have chosen the company to install single-passage control gateways, using iris recognition technology.