MBIE New Zealand Electronic Travel Visa – NZeTA

Customer

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)

Industry

Immigration/New Zealand Tourism

Challenges

Creating a streamlined and electronic travel visa process for travellers who wish to visit New Zealand for short term stays for up to 90 days from the date of arrival.

Given the safety and security measures in place at all borders globally, Immigration New Zealand needed an application that was safe and reliable which ensured that the individual applying for the visa was indeed the same individual in the photo of the attached passport inside of the process.

The INZ designed NZeTA system needed an online system, suitable for desktop or mobile applications to suit the needs of the modern traveller and needed to be compatible for travellers on both Android and IOS.
The application needed to be able to handle large volumes of visa applications at any one time.

Solution

NEC New Zealand partnered with a local New Zealand entity to create an application that could be used and downloaded onto all devices to suit travellers coming to New Zealand on short term visas.

NEC created a software development kit to fit inside the NZeTA which allowed applicants to capture a photo of both their face and their passport, and upload it to the application for verification.

The NEC ePid SDK would then verify the identity of the passport against the captured picture and allow the application to progress. To suit all travellers the SDK would work on both Android and IOS in an application size which allowed it to be downloaded at airports using Wi-Fi for convenience.

The process from beginning the visa application to the completion of the visa application takes less than 5 minutes, gathering all of the personal information of the traveller through to verifying the biometric facial identity of the traveller and having that verified against the visitor’s passport for a completed application.

The NZeTA has already processed over 1 million visa applications from all over the world and is expected to rise to 1.5 million and beyond in the future, post COVID-19.

 

The landscape of travel in the post-COVID world has potentially changed forever.

Today more than ever, we think about the health and safety measures which need to be taken into account when you consider boarding a plane or travelling anywhere internationally.

With the advancement of security threats through technology, all countries need to be able to detect, identify, and protect their borders from people of interest and potential threats to keep both their people and the environment safe.

Protecting New Zealand’s border

New Zealand has been a tourist mecca for many years. The “clean, green New Zealand” and “100% Pure NZ” theme is well known throughout the world. Pre-COVID-19, tourists and business people were visiting New Zealand more than ever from all over the globe. COVID-19 has obviously put the brakes on the growth in international tourism, however as soon as international borders open back up, we can expect tourist numbers to swell once again.

A fast, smooth and easy visa application process is crucial for New Zealand to keep up with the demand and to allow travellers to come here. More importantly, it allows the New Zealand Immigration team to know who is coming and when, and it allows INZ the ability and assurance to know that the person applying for the application is who they say they are.

What is the NZeTA?

The New Zealand eTA is an Electronic Travel Authority for travellers who wish to visit New Zealand for short-term stays of up to 90 days from the date of arrival, with the exception of British nationals who can stay for a period of up to 6 months. The NZeTA is granted through an online application system. It was introduced to simplify visa processes for citizens of eligible countries who want to travel to and within New Zealand for short-term stays.

Biometrics and border control

Having the NEC biometric matching system behind the NZeTA application, capturing the picture taken from the applicant’s device and verifying it against the passport photo to match 1:1 and perform a 1:n search to check for fraud, are vital pieces to the application being successful.

At the time of capture, an NEC SDK is utilised to process the photo on the applicant’s device. The software runs several different checks to make sure that the lighting was correct, that the photo was taken at the right angle and of suitable quality, ensuring that the key metrics are there for the biometric matching system.

Outcomes

Whilst visa applications may currently be at an all-time low due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealanders can rest assured that once our borders re-open to international visitors, every precaution has been taken to protect our borders and ensure that any visitors applying for a New Zealand electronic tourist visa will have been verified using world-leading* facial recognition software developed by NEC.

This is just one of a number of ways NEC is working with Immigration New Zealand to keep our borders safe. For more information, get in touch with one of the team today.