Presenters
Session I – Enabling contactless travel: e-Visa, digital identity and travel credentials
Krum Garkov
Mr Garkov has more than 20 years of cross-cultural experiences spanning the public and private sectors.
He took up the Executive Director post at eu-LISA in November 2012 and has lead the Agency with the vision to promote information and communication technologies as a key success factor for integrated border management and law enforcement at the EU level.
Before eu-LISA, he was the Operations Director for Experian Group Ltd., a leading global information provider serving the finance industry. Prior to that, Mr Garkov was Program Manager at Hewlett-Packard. He has also served the National Revenue Agency, as well as the Centre for Mass Privatization in Bulgaria. Mr Garkov holds an M. Sc. in Computer Technologies (Varna), an MBA in Information Systems (Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey) and has received executive education from London School of Business & Finance with an MBA in Management Consulting.
Ciaran Carolan
Dr. Carolan is an experienced international innovation leader and intrapreneur. He previously worked in eu-LISA where he advanced the interoperability of EU IT systems for security and facilitation from conceptualization through political buy-in to legislative realization. During his time there, he was also a leading contributor to definition of EU Smart Borders concepts.
He is currently a Programme Manager at the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal, Canada, responsible for the ICAO Public Key Directory. In this work, he assures that both those states issuing electronic passports and those checking such passports at their borders exchange the information necessary for passport authentication, thereby assuring that they derive maximum value from their investments. In this role, he successfully published the first ICAO Master List. He is also part of the team that just published new international specifications for COVID-19 health proofs for travel.
Guido Brockmann
Guido works as Head of Product Management Sector in eu-LISA. Together with his team he takes care of all products at eu-LISA, the Schengen Visa and Biometric Matching System, the SIS II and its AFIS as well as the Eurodac. Prior to this he was for six years at the boundary between development and production in eu-LISA. As Head of Sector for Test and Integration Services, he led the team responsible for the software quality assurance and integration of new users to the systems.
The nature of his current and past horizontal tasks sees him involved in a multifold of business IT related projects and programs within eu-LISA, ensuring that they are executed to the highest standards. Within his portfolio of competencies he is specialized in applying different methodologies within medium-sized to large mission-critical projects.
Guido holds a M.A. in Political Sciences, Communications Research and International Law from the University Bonn, Germany. Fluent in five languages he is a certified Senior Project Manager with extensive experience in testing and deploying large scale IT systems in the Public Sector.
Prior to joining eu-LISA he worked for the European Research Council EA, the Directorate General for Informatics of the European Commission as well as in private enterprise.
Vision-Box & ANA/ VINCI Aeroportos de Portugal
Vision-Box is a multinational company with presence on 5 continents and over 7,000 digital identity solutions used by more than 1 billion citizens. The company is a world leader in biometrics seamless travel, automated border management and electronic identity management solutions. Vision-Box’s technology is present in more than 80 airports worldwide. Responsible for the most relevant advances in the use of biometrics, Vision-Box solutions streamline the passenger experience throughout their journey and improve the efficiency of public services to ensure safety, security and performance.
ANA Aeroportos de Portugal is responsible for managing 10 airports in main Portugal, Azores and Madeira. They focus on innovation and efficiency, working on a daily basis to provide visitors with a unique experience and the best services. In September 2013 the organization integrated VINCI Airports.
VINCI Airports, the leading private airport operator in the world, manages 45 airports in 12 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas. We harness our expertise as a comprehensive integrator to develop, finance, build and operate airports, while leveraging our investment capability and expertise in optimising operational performance, modernising infrastructure and driving environmental transition. VINCI Airports became the first airport operator to start rolling out an international environmental strategy, in 2016, with a view to achieving net zero emissions throughout its network by 2050.
VFS Global
VFS Global is the industry pioneer and the world’s largest outsourcing and technology services specialist for governments and diplomatic missions.VFS Global has worldwide reach with operations in 144 countries across five continents operating about 3,500 Application Centres globally. The company has successfully processed over 229 million applications since its inception in 2001.VFS Global’s end-to-end unique and innovative biometric solutions including Multi Mission Model, Single Tenancy solution, Mobile Biometrics and Authentication systems are used by 63 client governments.
SPIDX LLC
SPIDX LLC is a company that enables people to securely access digital services and empowers the global digital economy focusing on the digital identity market, in a reliable, digitally verifiable, and worldwide scalable way. SPIDX provides a globally unique digital identity for all, anywhere, uniquely identifying any person all over the world with unmatched privacy, cost, and convenience, without requiring any documents issued by governments. An anti-fraud solution that uses mobile multi-biometric recognition technology, artificial intelligence, and is backed by a team of experts that actively monitor and review high-risk transactions.”
Mühlbauer ID Services
Mühlbauer, founded 1981, is a one-stop-shop for the design, implementation and support of complex ID projects. In close cooperation with our partners, we do not only supply machines and software, but also accept complete responsibility for the project’s implementation, from design and set-up of the infrastructure on site through data collection to the issuance of highly secure ID documents to citizens. With our expertise gained in more than 300 ID projects for governments, government agencies and industrial customers around the world, we know that every solution project is unique.
Session II – Enabling contactless travel: Biometric technologies for secure and efficient border crossing
Deloitte (Ciara Walsh & Emma Vermunicht)
Ciara Walsh is a senior consultant within Deloitte’s Government and Public Sector team. Ciara specialises in providing policy services to the European Commission and agencies with expertise in the security, justice and digital domains. She has co-authored several EU publications and is currently leading a study for the European Commission on the EU Security Market.
Emma Vermunicht is a business analyst within the Government and Public Sector team of Deloitte. She supports the data collection and analysis part of the EU Security Market study and has experience in policy studies and evaluations for the European Commission and Flemish Government.
Patrick Grother
Patrick Grother is a scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology responsible for biometric algorithm evaluation, and biometric standardization. He leads the Face Recognition Vendor Tests, the Face-In-Video Evaluation and the Iris Exchange projects which constitute the world’s largest independent public tests of biometric algorithms. His current research interests relate biometric failure analysis, image quality, demographic effects, and scalability.
Patrick assists several US Government agencies in biometrics performance assessment and standardization. Since 2018, he has served as the chairman of the ISO/IEC/JTC 1 Subcommittee 37 on Biometrics where he is editor of seven performance testing and data interchange standards. He is the recipient of three U. S. Department of Commerce Gold Medals, the IEC 1906 Award in 2009, and the ANSI Lohse IT Medal in 2013. He co-chairs NIST’s biannual International Face Performance Conference (IFPC).
Entrust
Entrust keeps the world moving safely by enabling trusted identities, payments and data protection. Today more than ever, people demand seamless, secure experiences, whether they’re crossing borders, making a purchase, accessing e-government services or logging into corporate networks.
Entrust offers an unmatched breadth of digital security and credential issuance solutions at the very heart of all these interactions.
In April 2021, Entrust acquired WorldReach Software and now operates as Entrust’s Identity Verification business unit.
IBMATA
IBMATA is a UK registered non-profit organization promoting collaboration between government and industry on Future Border Management Design and technology.
Our members include Border Agencies from around the world and technology providers who are already developing and installing new systems and processes at international borders both in the EU and elsewhere.
We run our own International Border Management events in different parts of the world from time to time, and we produce a regular Border Magazine – “Border Management Today” – available on our website at www.ibmata.org.
IN Groupe
Partner of the French State for almost 500 years, and supplier to 28 governments around the world, IN Groupe offers identity solutions and secure digital services at the cutting edge of technology for identity documents, electronics, optics and biometrics.
From components to services, including interoperability and travel identification, IN Groupe helps border forces and travel industry to meet today’s challenges by implementing and improving the quality of biometric and alphanumeric data.