New passport-reading and biometrics technology installed at Dubai International Airport is catching increasing numbers of people who attempt to enter the country with fake identity documents, reports the Gulf News.

Last year, the Expertise Centre Identity and Fraud Documents (ECIFD) agency caught 1,137 forged documents with its passport readers. Although passports and identity documents are getting more difficult to forge, criminals are now attempting to get into the country by committing “look-alike fraud,” or looking like the person in the document.

The ECIFD has invested in extensive training to help its agents identify counterfeit passports and other types of passport fraud. Using a three-tiered approach, the ECIFD’s system trains immigration officers to be the front line of authentication, and should a passport raise questions, the officer can go to a supervisor or lab analyst for further checks with more sophisticated equipment.

Employees go through a three-week training for passport verification processes.

The ECIFD’s passport readers also check for appropriate passport documentation and tampering. The agency is a contributing member of the Electronic Documentation Information System on Network (Edison) Travel Documents Section Committee. Edison is a database of real and fake travel documents from over 200 countries that assists agencies in the passport verification process.

The ECIFD can also read and verify biometric data store on the RFID chip in e-passports to quickly validate the immigration entry process.

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