Answer given by Ms Johansson on behalf of the European Commission

30.3.2020

As part of its efforts to improve EU border management, the Commission funds research to make border controls quicker and more efficient. As the Commission pointed out in its reply to written questions E-005264/2018 and E-005639/2018 on this research project, iBorderCtrl is a project (now completed) funded under Horizon 2020, which studied technologies that could increase the efficiency of faster processing for bona fide travellers and quicker detection of illegal activities.

Research on the ‘deception detection’ component was one of the several components of potential systems studied.

Regarding the specific three questions, while detailed results of the research are not available yet, the project will make available public research reports later in 2020. It should be noted that technical details of the system remain intrinsically part of the research activities and are embedded in the different research work strands.

In relation to the trials referred to in the media, the project reported that these were conducted through separate dedicated testing involving only staff members of the project. Furthermore, iBorderCtrl was a research project and did not envisage the piloting or deployment of an actually working system.

A research project can be used to explore the possible uses of new technologies, but a careful assessment of outputs will always be needed before operationalising any result and this will also be based on the acceptability and impact of the explored technology in and on society.