With the busy travel season approaching – and Portuguese airports still unsure whether or not they will have to reintroduce the EES system that prompted so many queues last year – European borders agency Frontex has launched an app to hopefully make passing through airports a great deal easier.
Available for download from App store, Google Play and other ‘major platforms’, the Travel to Europe app can already be used for non-Europeans flying into Lisbon.
It will be extended to Portugal’s other airports within the next few weeks.
According to a joint statement issued by SSI (Portugal’s internal security system), PSP and GNR police, in articulation with the government, the app allows “travellers from third countries to pre-register travel information before they arrive at frontier control, making the entry process more efficient.”
It has been “developed as part of the EU’s Entry/ Exit System (EES), which seeks to make external frontier controls more efficient, modern and faster for travellers from third countries”.
As the statement explains, travellers can pre-register their personal data and travel details before arriving at border control, allowing this part of the “necessary information” to be processed ahead of their arrival, “which will contribute to making the process more agile”.
“This pre-registration can be used in the self-service kiosks, when they are available at border crossing points.”
The app became available in Portugal yesterday, an official SSI source tells Lusa. It also carries a questionnaire to “avoid the need for border control guards to ask the questions”. It can be filled in up to 72-hours ahead of flying – generating a QR-code which can be ‘read by the self-service kiosks’.
Travellers who do not want to go through this process are under no obligation to. But it is designed to make travel much easier. As the authorities’ joint statement explains: “Although use of the app is optional and does not replace standard border control procedures, it allows some of the necessary information to be processed in advance, making the experience of entering Europe simpler and more efficient for both travellers and the authorities responsible for border control.”
Meantime the EES – suspended for three months in December due to the chaos it seemed to generate – remains suspended. An SSI source confirms that the taking of biometric data continues to be left on the back burner, albeit “several tests” have been made recently.
Source: SIC Notícias/ LUSA
