Travellers line up at Changi Airport in Singapore. (Photo: AFP/VNA)Singapore (VNA) - Singaporeresidents and visitors leaving the country will be able to clear checkpointswithout having to use their passports from 2024.
The information was announced by the Immigration andCheckpoints Authority (ICA) at its annual workplan seminar held recently.
Travelers can clear immigration viaQR code at land checkpoints if travelling by car, or the new contactlessAutomated Border Control System (ABCS) at passenger halls in airports, it noted.
The ICA said the manualcounters at passenger halls at all checkpoints will be replaced by about 800automated lanes using ABCS from the first quarter of 2024, The Straits Timesreported.
The ABCS lanes will use biometrics for clearance. It is partof ICA’s new clearance concept (NCC), which was announced in 2019. The NCCtransformation plan aims to provide faster and more secure immigration and customs clearance.
Special assistance lanes, which wererolled out in some passenger halls at Changi Airport in December last year andallowed travelers to conduct immigration self-clearance as a group, will beextended to other checkpoints from the end of this year.
For those traveling by car, ICAsaid it piloted the Automated Passenger In-Car Clearance System (Apics) in 2022and about 94% of travelers were able to use it without assistance fromofficers.
The ICA is trialing the use ofartificial intelligence to track anomalies in images of scanned baggage to helpits staff better detect potential threats. In addition, the authority will alsoaccelerate the transformation of border clearance services to facilitate themovement of people and goods./.
