Pak trashes American ID system at its airports

Pakistani authorities have begun replacing a personal identification system provided by the US with indigenously developed software at airports and ports across the country.

The National Database and Registration Authority has developed the Integrated Border Management System that is being rolled out in phases at 26 airports, ports and railway stations to replace the Personal Identification Secure Comparison Evaluation System provided by the US.

The IBMS will be used for immigration processing, a NADRA spokesperson said.

The IBMS has been deployed since February last year and is currently operational at the international airports in Rawalpindi, Karachi and Peshawar and the Torkham land border crossing.

It was launched at the international airport in Lahore on Saturday.

The spokesperson said IBMS was designed to replace the US-based PISCES system and has many new additional features.

The IBMS has been designed according to Pakistani immigration laws and helps prevent illegal entry, use of counterfeit documents, human smuggling and other travel fraud.

Sources told PTI that the changeover was done because of concerns among Pakistani security agencies that the US could access the extensive data collected by the PISCES system.

The spokesperson said about 90 per cent of total traffic has been shifted to IBMS for immigration processing.

The remaining 10 per cent is expected to be linked with the system in a few months.

The spokesperson further said IBMS has been equipped with technologies like advance fingerprint matching, specialised handling for different categories of travellers and scalability for integration with other national databases.