Travellers entering Australia will soon be checked to see if they have undeclared criminal convictions against a biometrics database before being allowed into Australia, Federal Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison announced this at the Biometrics Institute Asia Pacific conference in Sydney yesterday. Morrison told delegates that the government is investing $700 million over the next six years to modernise Australia’s border management system with specific vigilance on weeding out ex-convicts and people with links to terrorist groups.
It is expected that most travellers will sail through the immigration gates as the system aims at making processing quicker and easier for legitimate travellers. The aim is to have such travellers move through the automated immigration system in ‘less than a minute”.
