Topic SEC-2013.3.4-2 Extended border security - passport breeder document security

Coordination and Support Action (Supporting Action)
 
Description of topic:
A  recent  study  by  Frontex  on  the  Operational  and  Technical  security  of  E-passports (http://www.frontex.europa.eu/gfx/frontex/files/frontex_study_on_operational_and_technical_security_of_electronic_pasports_public.pdf) identified  that  the  reliability  of  the  e-passport  issuance  process  is  vital  for  EU/Schengen border control. Indeed, since every Member State has in essence the role of a “back-door” into its  Schengen  neighbours,  it  is  important  to  ensure  that  each  external  border  maintains  a minimum equivalent level of security and that variations in the e-Passport issuance process are minimised.
 
If legitimate documents are being issued on the basis of unreliable ones, then border control cannot  address  this  problem.  The  Frontex  report  therefore  recommended  that  “structural information exchange between the issuance community and the border control community on e-passport  security  matters”  and  that  “training  (and  possibly  tool  provisioning)  for  the verification of breeder documents by issuance officers” be provided.  
 
The proposal should investigate:  
•  the  current  state  of  passport  breeder  document  requirements  and  issuing  practice  in Member States/Associated Countries;  
•  identify key common security gaps;  
•  recommend possible solutions; and  
•  include feasible and cost-effective training and communication methods.
 
Funding schemes: Coordination and Support Action (Supporting Action)
 
Expected impact:
The impact of the project will be assessed in terms of:  
•  its potential to contribute (credibly and substantially) to the improvement of the reliability of the process of e-passport issuance, redressing security gaps, and its harmonization at the EU/Schengen level;
•  the value of its outputs for intensified training of both passport issuance officers, on how to detect falsified breeder documents (such as birth certificates), and of border guards, on the specifics of e-Passports inspection.
 
 

Topic SEC-2013.3.2-1 Pre-Operational Validation (POV) on land borders
 
Description of topic:
The Security Research Theme aims to promote further cooperation between public authorities (end-users) developing new solutions to improve the quality and efficiency of public services related  to  security  on  topics  of  common  European  interest,  through  the  pre-operational validation (POV) of solutions related to such services. Pre-operational validation guided by potential  end-users  allows  a  tangible  assessment  of  the  performance  levels  offered  by
innovative  technologies  in  a  realistic  user-defined  operational  scenario,  where  a  trade  off between efficiency, effectiveness and cost can be aligned with actual needs. Moreover, pre-operational validation allows not only the assessment of a stand-alone technology, but also the assessment of the integration into current surveillance infrastructure of the new capabilities provided.
 
The  close  link  between  end-users  and  industry,  especially  in  those  cases  where  there  is  a fuzzy perception of the real needs of the user for a particular technology in daily practice, is expected to extend the benefits of pre-operational validation beyond technical development.
The identification of innovative applications, business models and procurement strategies is also expected to reverberate in the integration of innovative solutions as a fully operational tool. By acting as technologically knowledgeable validator of new R&D, the public demand side can drive innovation.  
 
The  validation  of  innovative  solutions  in  real  operational  environments  requires  a  notable effort  by  end-users  at  all  levels,  including  technical,  organisational,  operational  and budgetary. Keeping in mind the necessity to directly involve public bodies in charge of border surveillance,  the  Pre-Operational  Validation  (POV)  concept  has  been  chosen  as  a  way  to assess  the  performance  levels  offered  by  innovative  technologies  in  a  realistic  end-user defined scenario, where a trade-off between efficiency, effectiveness and cost can be aligned with actual needs.
 
Last  but  not  least,  the  activities  carried  out  under  POV  make  it  possible  to  integrate  and validate  at  the  EU  level,  in  an  experimental  framework,  the  achievements  of  previous initiatives  that  have  explored  and  studied  the  different  dimensions  of  components  and systems, from their pure technological development to the features of their exploitation. 

This topic is presented for proposals to enhance the use by the concerned civilian authorities of innovative technology for border surveillance. The specific objective of this topic is to address solutions for the pre-operational validation of "Common Application of Surveillance Tools at EU level".  
 
The overall objective is to provide the EU with an operational and technical framework that would  increase  situational  awareness  and  improve  the  reaction  capability  of  authorities surveying  the  external  borders  of  the  EU/Schengen  area.    Only  selected  elements  of  a European approach to Border Surveillance are to be done at European level, in line with the principle of Subsidiarity. A decentralised approach with national authorities is to be followed in implementation so as to:
•  allow the highest possible level of integration with current surveillance systems and infrastructure,  
•  make  use  of  the  existing  and  future  communication  channels  that  facilitate  the generation of a Europe wide situational picture and a full operational awareness at the external borders.  
 
The EU Sea Border is currently sufficiently covered by ongoing FP7 activities. On the other hand there is a deficit of land border initiatives. POV research activities are proposed to be oriented  to  the  validation  of  an  adaptive  and  knowledge-aided  multi-sensor  infrastructure providing an integrated system.   
 
Indeed, the EU/Schengen land border requires continuous day/night detection and assessment capabilities  to  provide  early  warning  on  unauthorised  intrusion  across  the  border  by smugglers, irregular immigrants, or people involved in any other illegal activity. At official border crossing points (BCP) there is a continuous  prevention and  protection  against these threats that may affect the security of the European Union. However, actual irregular border crossings are being increasingly performed on foot or with the help of light vehicles outside the BCPs, taking advantage of the terrain and of poor visibility to avoid detection. In remote areas of land borders, where it is relatively easy to irregularly trespass the frontier undetected, the cost of providing and maintaining effective physical barriers is excessive.
 
Technology has been a trustable ally, but current capability demand requires progress beyond the  current  state  of  the  art.  Tools  and  systems  need  to  be  aligned  with  current  threats, overcoming  existing  limitations  and  provide  cost-effective  solutions  in  line  with  the  end-users’  needs. The evaluation  of  cost  efficient platform/sensor combinations and of systems matching data exploitation is a research priority for Border Guard communities. A POV on land border surveillance should, hence, investigate and evaluate such technologies in live tests carried out under operational conditions defined by border surveillance authorities.
 
New security solutions to be validated under this action should take into account any aspect of  border  security  that  could  threaten  human  rights  or  break  international  law.  When necessary and appropriate, alternative solutions should be explored. Capabilities intended to provide “early warning” or “detect” observations from EU/Schengen neighbouring countries should be developed in agreement with neighbouring countries.  
 
The  topic  is  to  be  implemented  via  the  CP-CSA  funding  instrument,  which  involves  a combination  of  the  collaborative  project  and  coordination  and  support  action  funding  schemes.  It  enables  therefore  the  financing,  under  the  same  grant  agreement,  of  research, coordination and support activities.  
 
Its aim is both to enable public authorities in charge of border surveillance to innovate faster in the provision of their institutional services, making them more efficient and effective, and to  increase  the  research  capacity  and  innovation  performance  of  European  companies  and research  institutions,  creating  new  opportunities  to  take  international  leadership  in  new markets.  
 
This CP-CSA for POV will combine two components with synergistic effects:
 
a.  Networking and coordination activities: for public bodies in Europe to cooperate in the innovation of their public services through a strategy that includes POV.
b.  Joint  research  activities:  related  to  validating  the  POV  strategy  jointly  defined  by  the public bodies participating in the action. This would include the exploration of possible solutions for the targeted improvements in border surveillance services, and the testing of these  solutions  against  a  set  of  jointly  defined  concepts  of  operations  and  performance criteria.
 
The nature and the objectives of this indirect action are such that it should ideally involve at least three independent public authorities in charge of border surveillance (at local, regional, national  or  supra-national  levels),  each  established  in  a  different  EU  Member  State  or Associated Country. Other stakeholders may participate in addition, if their participation is well justified and adds value to the action, for example (but not limited to) if:   
 
a.  they represent an authority or a regulatory body with responsibility in some area affected by the use of a particular technology,
b.  their  support  is  required  in  order  to  facilitate  the  technical,  administrative,  financial  or managerial  procedures  for  which  national  authorities  are  limited  by  their  respective national regulation.
 
SCOPE of the CP-CSA (Collaborative Project and Coordination and Support Action)
 
In the context of European Border Surveillance, this CP-CSA is to conduct pre-operational validation of common applications of tools for the surveillance of land borders at EU level via the competitive testing and assessment of potential solutions. Tools to be tested may include a variety of platform types deploying sensors for surveillance purposes.
 
The  information  acquired  by  each  platform  type  should  be  correlated  with  other  available intelligence sources (i.e. airborne or satellite imagery, sensor data or open source information) to provide the relevant national and European Agencies with surveillance information on their external borders and the EU pre-frontier area on a frequent, reliable and cost-efficient basis.  
 
The specific objective of the competitive testing will be to assess:
 
•  the  demonstration  that  there  are  existing  innovative  solutions  which  provide  the required additional capabilities;
•  the  identification  of  technological  solutions  for  the  achievement  of  a  set  of  user-defined operational objectives;
•  the technical feasibility of options for the Common Applications of different types of surveillance tools;  
•  the  feasibility  of  the  integration  of  these  technologies  taking  into  consideration  the limitations imposed by the existing surveillance deployments;
•  the comparative performance of proposed options, while deployed in daily operations in real scenarios;
•  the identification and documentation, as appropriate, of the infrastructure, capabilities and  skills  required  for  the  acquisition  and  operation  of  these  systems  under  user-defined safety and security conditions;
•  the cost-benefit ratio of each of the options tested;
•  the  identification  of  the  maturity  level  showed  by  solutions  in  order  to  promote short/mid-term utilisation;
•  the definition of innovative applications, business models and procurement schemes that  can  facilitate  the  migration  to  these  new  solutions  from  the  existing  traditional tools;
•  the  evaluation  of  the  experimentation  results  promoting  their  widening  to  future solutions.  
As part of the project activities, the industry shall be called to provide solutions to be tested and validated according to the concept developed by the consortium participants. In order to guarantee  an  independent  and  reliable  validation  process  of  the  proposed  solutions,  a mechanism has to be enabled that supports the activity of the different actors throughout a series of steps.
 
The overall validation action CP-CSA is to be divided in the following three phases.
 
1)  Initial Definition Phase (CSA):  
 
The definition phase should be based on the latest relevant requirements for European Border Surveillance.  Participating  border  surveillance  authorities  are  expected  to  present  their cooperative  plan  for  definition  of  the  later  phases,  in  coordination  with  other  relevant  EU organisations (if appropriate).  
 
In this phase a strategy shall be put in place for:
-  identification  of  elements  requiring  new  R&D  that  could  be  tested  and  validated  in cooperation,
-  definition of an action plan, setting scenarios and issues for concrete implementation of activities,
-  establishment of good practice procedures for POV evaluation and monitoring (common evaluation criteria and implementation methods),
-  drafting a preliminary IPR strategy for the (expected) outcome of the Call for Tender in phase 2, taking into account the provisions set out in the Appendix,
-  allocation and training of additional resources for implementation (if appropriate),
-  building cooperation with other stakeholders (if appropriate).
 
The  outcome  is  expected  to  be  a  Needs  Analysis  Document  and  a  Validation  Strategy Document, including a practical Exercise Plan for the actual testing phase, to be used for the definition of the specifications of a joint POV Call for Tender for the subsequent execution phase, setting the rules for participation, the criteria to evaluate competitive tenders, and for selection/award of the tender. Such call shall be defined in such a way that it respects the
Treaty principles and the specific requirements in Appendix.  

2)  Preparatory Work and Execution Phase (CP):
 
This  phase  will  implement  the  strategy  and  action  plan  as  prescribed  by  the  participating authorities, in Phase 1 (in particular the Call for Tender for the implementation of testing).  
 
In this phase the providers of solutions to be tested will execute the testing of their systems according  to  the  prescription  of  the  action  plan,  working  under  the  supervision  of  the concerned national Border Authorities.  
 
3)  Final Ex-post Assessment Phase (CSA):  
 
In  this  phase,  which  will  conclude  the  overall  validation,  participating  national  Border Authorities,  in  coordination  with  other  relevant  EU  organizations,  will  conduct  a  thorough assessment of the solution performances as demonstrated in the testing exercises of phase 2, against the set of jointly defined performance criteria, in order to verify fitness for purpose, with  a  view  to  a  potential  conversion  into  permanent  services  of  the  systems  tested.  This phase should confirm as appropriate the IPR strategy and include dissemination of results to standardisation bodies (if appropriate).  
 
PLEASE CHECK THE WORKPROGRAMME FOR FURTHER TEXT!
 
Expected impact:  
This CSA-CP is expected to significantly contribute to the implementation of an EU approach to  Border  Surveillance,  thus  enabling  national  and  other  relevant  authorities  to  more effectively carry out their border surveillance activities, collaborating at tactical, operational and strategic levels, in order to:
– increase internal security of the EU by preventing cross-border crime; and – reduce the number of irregular migrants across the external EU borders.
 
At the end of the project, the participating public bodies in charge of border surveillance (also potential  purchasers)  should  have  obtained  clear  evidence  of  the  cost-efficiency  of (alternative)  surveillance  systems,  which  could  later  be  deployed  as  common  EU  level surveillance applications.  
 
The  project  is  also  expected  to  promote  increased  opportunities  for  market  uptake  and economies of scale for the supply side by forming critical mass on the public demand side, and contribute to standardisation of jointly defined public sector requirements specifications.
 
Through the execution of the project, the adaptation of existing technologies and the research and development of new technologies, participants are expected to verify and optimise their technological  choices.  Technology  providers  will  increase  their  understanding  of  modern operational requirements thus increasing their competitiveness. The project has the potential to  create  important  market  opportunities  for  European  industry  and  establish  a  clear leadership in this area.

PLEASE CHECK THE WORKPROGRAMME FOR FURTHER TEXT!