British travelers to Europe may soon have to pass scrutiny from the European Union’s controversial artificial intelligence lie detector iBorderCtrl or similar behavior analysis software.

The software analyzes facial movements and body gestures in order to flag suspicious behavior to immigration officers. The system could be incorporated at border checks at airports and ferry terminals as part of the EU’s upcoming border control schemes, the Entry-Exit System (EES) and European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), according to The Mail on Sunday.

The EES is expected to take effect on October 6th while ETIAS will follow in 2025. Both travel schemes require non-EU visitors to submit biographic and biometric data to enter Schengen countries.

iBorderControl has been a target of heavy scrutiny among rights groups and lawmakers. German member of the European Parliament Patrick Breyer filed a lawsuit in 2019 to the Court of Justice of the European Union seeking to access classified documents on the project. The court, however, ruled to restrict many of the details of the software, citing the need to protect commercial interests.

Last Friday, Breyer dismissed the technology as pseudoscience, adding that it is not possible to detect lying from facial gestures.

“It will discriminate against anyone who is disabled or who has an anxious personality. It will not work,” he says.

The €4.5 million (US$5.1 million) EU-funded iBorderCtrl project was piloted between 2016 and 2019 in Greece, Hungary and Latvia. The technology was developed by scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University, selling it commercially through their firm Silent Talker Ltd. The software was piloted by the TRESPASS Consortium, which also tested another lie detector software under the name TRESPASS until November 2021.

According to the EU AI Act, emotion recognition is defined as a high-risk AI system. Critics, however, point out that the regulation leaves space for its use in law enforcement and migration control.

EES app can’t collect facial images, airline executive says
The European Entry-Exit System (EES) pre-registration mobile app, designed to cut queues at border crossings, is still not completed and will likely not be ready for months in France after the new border regime is launched. One of the reasons for the delay may be its inability to collect facial images, according to an industry insider cited by Connexion France.