Entrust Helps UK Home Office Simplify Border Control with Identity Verification and Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA)
When the UK's Home Office was seeking to achieve its goal of digitalizing border control to enhance security and streamline travel authorization, it turned to Entrust for identity verification solutions. Learn why.
Customer Profile
The Home Office is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is the lead government department for immigration and passports, drug policy, crime, fire, counterterrorism, and police.
UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) is responsible for making millions of decisions every year about who has the right to visit or stay in the country, with a firm emphasis on national security and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who travel to the UK legally. UKVI is part of the Home Office.
It established the ETA program for seamless electronic travel authorization for international travelers to the UK.
Objectives
- Improve border security and modernize the UK border and immigration system with digital solutions
- Deliver a smooth and simple travel authorization experience for legitimate travelers
Challenge
The Home Office is implementing a transformative strategy to establish the UK's border as the most efficient and secure globally. This initiative aims to deliver a more streamlined, secure, and expedited digital immigration system for the millions of individuals who cross the UK border each year.
As part of this transformation, the UK has launched an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) scheme – an ETA is a digital permission for non-visa visitors to the UK for up to 6 months for tourism, visiting family and friends, business or short-term study.
Obtaining travel permissions for travelers to the UK has traditionally been a time-consuming and inconvenient experience, often involving attending an appointment in person or mailing the passport. With Entrust Identity Verification, eligible visitors to the UK can verify their identity, link it to their passport, and apply for the ETA through a secure mobile app or online in less than 10 minutes.
Introduced in three distinct phases from 2023-2025, the ETA aimed to strengthen border security by pre-screening travelers planning to visit the UK, while simplifying the application process.
Solution
Entrust Identity Verification enables faster and more secure immigration application processing. It offers a streamlined and secure way for travelers coming to the UK to be identified via their facial biometrics, bringing more secure border control and speeding up identity and border checks. With the proven success of Entrust Identity Verification in the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) and the Biometric Residence Permits (BRP), the Home Office had reliable technology for the ETA program.
Entrust Identity Verification acts as the digital ‘front door’ to immigration applications and border declarations. The technology ensures that personal and unique biometric data is processed securely and efficiently, reducing the need for hard-copy paperwork and in-person appointments at the Home Office. By seamlessly integrating the payments system that accepts more than 19 different currencies as part of the ETA application process, legitimate travelers benefit from a low-friction digital experience.
Results
Entrust partnered with the Home Office to develop a user-friendly ETA process that would add minimal friction to visitors who hitherto did not have to apply for any digital permissions to travel to the UK. Extensive trials and large-scale pilots (with Qatari nationals in late 2023) ensured that the Home Office met all its rollout schedule timelines. With this latest rollout, the Home Office has furthered its digital travel ambitions by:
- Improving national security with advance passenger screening and requiring authorization from previously exempt travelers to close security gaps.
- Collecting more comprehensive data on individuals entering and exiting the UK, while ensuring a low-friction digital experience for legitimate travelers
- Establishing the technological infrastructure for future border control advancements
Digitisation enables a smooth experience for the millions of people who pass through the border every year, including the visitors we warmly welcome to the UK who are predicted to contribute over £32 billion to our tourism economy this year. The worldwide expansion of the ETA demonstrates our commitment to enhance security through new technology and embedding a modern immigration system.
Seema Malhotra
Minister of Migration and Citizenship, the Home Office
The Transformation
Streamlining Immigration Applications with Enhanced Identity and Document Verification
The UK ETA application process is simple, secure, and straightforward, allowing border control officials to quickly and confidently determine the person is truly who they say they are. The applicants use a mobile app that scans the chip in their passport and authenticates the document's legitimacy. They then take a "selfie" or a scan of their face, which is matched against their portrait in the passport, as well as the image stored in their passport chip. A liveness test confirms the applicant is a real, live person. This information is securely sent to the Home Office, aiding in the decision to grant the ETA and complete the application process.
The IDV process also features advanced biometric matching algorithms that have reduced the need for manual verification by more than 50%, increasing operational efficiency. Entrust also integrated enhanced guidance within the mobile app to assist applicants with locating the NFC chip in their passport. This further enhances the user-friendliness of the ETA process, which takes about 5 minutes from start to finish for most applications.
Measures of Success
Verifications by the Millions
- The Home Office successfully rolled out ETA during 2023-2025 in three phases: starting with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, expanding to the visa-exempt non-EU countries in the latter half of 2024 and to EU countries in April 2025 on schedule.
- The Home Office maintained the ETA process with near-zero downtime since the announcement and implementation of the global expansion.
- The solution enabled seamless integration of payments within the ETA process, accepting payments in 19 currencies, bringing in over hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue to the UK since the ETA rollout.
The Entrust Advantage
Entrust is recognized and ranked as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Identity Verification in 2024. With over 50 years of experience delivering government programs, Entrust offers a comprehensive suite of identity and document verification solutions that can integrate in-house or third-party components based on customer requirements. Its solutions portfolio are designed to enable ease of integration with existing systems, compliance with local regulations, and international standards for data security and privacy. Entrust IDV customers benefit from stable and reliable processes at scale, accurate identity verification, and strong data privacy and security.
Related Products & Services
Entrust Identity Verification as a Service
Remote verification of an individual’s claimed identity for immigration, border management, or digital services delivery.
Entrust Seamless Travel as a Service
Ensure remote identity verification, digital travel credentials, and touchless border processes.
Related Resources
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