Immigration to Use Facial Recognition Tech to Monitor Foreigners in Bali Ahead of G20 Summit

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Traffic control of foreign nationals is one of the concerns of the Directorate General of Immigration of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights (Kemenkumham) ahead of the holding of the G20 Summit. To support the program, Immigration installed a facial recognition camera at Gilimanuk Harbor, Bali.

"I request that the coordination and synergy between immigration and national police, military, and relevant agencies in securing the G20 summit event are further improved," said Acting Director General of Immigration Kemenkumham Widodo Ekatjahjana in a written statement, Monday, November 7, 2022.

Face recognition is a technology that is used to identify faces for various purposes. In this case, the technology is intended for immigration surveillance for it could identify the faces of foreigners that are listed in the All-points bulletin (DPO/APB = a broadcast alert from one police station to all others in an area, state, etc., as with instructions to arrest a particular suspect or suspects.) or red notices (Interpol).

Similar technology was also used by national police to secure the G20 summit in Bali. Face recognition will be on the command centre that monitors all security officers' activities.

According to Widodo, the installation of the facial recognition camera was done by the Indonesia Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (INAFIS) to identify the faces of passengers that arrive at Gilimanuk Harbor. Although the location status does not regard it as an immigration checkpoint (TPI), The port is considered strategic for domestic and foreign tourists due to the port's position opposite the island of Java which takes land tours to various Java-Bali tourist sites.

"This needs to be the attention of immigration to implement surveillance and immigration law enforcement," Widodo said.

In supporting the G20 Summit, immigration services established an electronic visa on arrival (e-VoA) service. This service allows foreigners, including delegates, to manage their visas on arrival while still in their country of origin. E-VoA will be inaugurated on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.

ANTARA | IMAJI LASAHIDO (INTERN)

Click here to get the latest news updates from Tempo on Google News