DHS-funded center experiments with virtual border officers.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News

A Department of Homeland Security funded program recently demonstrated the ability to replace border guards with a computer-generated substitute that can interrogate travelers while picking up the telltale signs of deceit.

The National Center for Border Security and Immigration, a consortium of 18 institutions headquartered at the University of Arizona, ran a trial late last year of Avatar, a kiosk with a computer animated border guard and outfitted with a variety of sensors that can scan passports, check fingerprints and read pupils, said Aaron Elkins, a postdoctoral researcher at the Imperial College of London's intelligent behavior understanding group.

"A lot of this rests on the science that has been developing over the past 20 to 25 years," he said in an interview.

The system underwent field tests at the Henri Coand International Airport in Bucharest, Romania. Frontex, the European Union border-control agency, has been working with the DHS-funded center of excellence on the project since 2010.

The objective of the trial was to allow airport travelers from around the world to interact and be interviewed in the kiosk after disembarking from their flights and going through the passport control area. It tailored its interview to their language and asked country specific visa questions while measuring behavior, physiology and verbal responses.

After the interview, E.U. border guards were provided behavioral interview summaries that told them whether additional screening might be needed.

Previous field tests in Arizona allowed Customs and Border Protection agents to prescreen Mexican applicants in trusted traveler programs. The results then were promising, but Elkins said the next challenge was to see if it would work in a high-throughput scenario such as an, airport.

Several modifications were made. Passport readers and fingerprint readers were integrated. The researchers also had to create an automatic height adjustment system so the sensors could line up exactly with the subjects. In some cases during the Arizona trial, subjects were either too short or too tall to participate, he said.

"It...