Europe launches ‘gait recognition’ pilot program to monitor border crossings

A European Commission-funded biometric “gait recognition” program to study how to more easily identify people crossing the European Union’s external borders by examining their unique walking styles kicked off Thursday.

The initiative, dubbed the PopEye Project, is supported by a €3.2 million ($3.5 million) grant that covers a three-year pilot testing the technology, according to TechTransfer, a program at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and a partner on the effort.

Horizon Europe, a European Union funding mechanism for research and innovation, is bankrolling the pilot, according to TechTransfer and a second partner, the Swiss research institute Idiap. 

PopEye is experimenting with how to strengthen security at external EU borders by testing “robust biometric technologies for verification and identification,” in combination with gait recognition, according to Idiap.

The technology PopEye will test is designed to allow law enforcement and border authorities to identify and verify “people on the move and without stopping them, at up to 200 (meters) distance,” a post on the Idiap website says.

The outlet Biometric Update first reported news of the pilot launch.

The PopEye Project pilot follows a 2021 research study from the European Border and Coast Guard agency, known as Frontex, which examined gait recognition in depth. 

The Frontex study said video, radar and floor sensors could be used to identify people by their gait. It acknowledged that gait recognition technology on its own may be less accurate than other biometric tools, but said that when used in combination with 3-D facial recognition it could facilitate identification and verification “on the move for seamless border crossings.”

Among the pluses of gait recognition technology, according to the study: “It does not require the subject to cooperate.”

The PopEye Project billed its initiative as “privacy-preserving” in a LinkedIn announcement, and some partners portrayed the effort as a benefit to travelers due to its under the radar execution.

The initiative is focused on “maximizing the travelers’ experience when crossing the external EU borders through unobtrusive” tech, Idiap said, and will increase the productivity of border authorities. 

Idiap also assured the program will be compliant with the European Union’s AI Act and General Data Protection Regulation.

The Finnish Ministry of Interior and Romanian Border Authorities are partnering with several research institutes and universities as participants in the pilot, an announcement on the project’s LinkedIn page says. 

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