MINSK, 23 November (BelTA) – Citizens of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan can now use their biometric passports to go through the digital gateway system in the Minsk National Airport as of 21 November, BelTA learned from the website of the State Border Committee of Belarus.
In the past the option was available only to Belarusians. Now citizens of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan can go through border control procedures with assistance of a human border service officer or on their own by choosing a separate border control queue that relies on a digital gateway software and hardware complex.
The digital gateway system is in testing phase now. If passengers choose to use the system, their passport data and biometric data will be checked by computers while a border service officer will check only some of the data. Since the digital gateway system is in the experiment phase, a human officer will have to identify the passenger and check his or her documents. The State Border Committee of Belarus kindly requests passengers to actively test the system for the sake of ironing out all the quirks in order to create an effective digital gateway system in the future.
The digital gateway system was deployed as an experiment in August 2015. Over 22,500 Belarusians used the system in the second phase of the experiment, which began in July 2016. A set of measures is being implemented in Belarus to introduce biometric identification documents and create a national integrated service and payment system. The digital gateway experiment is meant to work out ways of checking biometric documents during border crossing procedures.
