Blazeclan’s Secure Application Framework Helps the Customer Automate Immigration Clearance for Airport

About Customer

Being an information & communications technology leader, the customer provides enterprise solutions, cybersecurity technologies, and cutting-edge public safety services for enabling safer cities create a brighter future. Innovative solutions and infrastructure offered by the customer help communities as well as individuals experience a safe, secured, and enhanced quality of life.

The Need for Automated Airport Immigration Clearance

The customer had an application that would capture the data, using OCR and text/image extraction technologies, from passport and other IDs through scanners installed at the entry gate and the exit gate of the immigration & checkpoints department. However, they wanted the data to be stored in Azure cloud, which will be further used for verifying immigrant details by matching them with the data in the customer’s application. Key requirements of the customer were to

• Digitalize the immigration documents
• Secure URLs and the tagging of images and videos​
• Create the database structure based on client database logs in the form of JSON
• Complete the visualization after receiving a high-level overview of screens
• Establish a highly scalable and manageable framework for their application

Blazeclan’s Solution

The customer partnered with Blazeclan to help them with a proof of concept (PoC) against their requirement for developing a highly scalable, secure, and cost-effective framework for their application. Blazeclan, being an Azure Gold Partner, will provide services that enable the data from the customer’s application to be securely stored into the backend of Azure cloud. The application data stored in the cloud will include

• Information from the immigrant’s passport
• Biometric details of the immigrant (fingerprint, retina, and face)

The scanner installed at the checkpoints will automatically register the above details of immigrants and then send it to the backend of Azure cloud. The Immigration & Checkpoints Officer (ICA) will then be able to verify the immigrant details, for which, the flow & criteria are given below.

Entry Flow – The customer’s application will send request to the cloud, succeeding which, a Yes (Y) or No (N) response will be received. If the response received is ‘Y’ then the entry flap will open for the immigrant to pass.

Within Gate Flow – The client application must match the face recognition details stored in the cloud. If it does, a response ‘Y’ will be received by the customer’s application, which in turn will allow the immigrant to pass through the exit gate.

An Admin Module for Transaction Clearance will also be prepared for the ICA officer to access details of any immigrant. The ICA officer can access either of the following details –

• Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) / Unique identification Number (UIN) / Foreign Identification Number (FIN)
• Lane Number
• Date Range
• Time Range

The PoC offered by Blazeclan to the customer will also encompass

• A highly scalable and secure cloud solution, using Azure Kubernetes for containerization
• POST API to push the traveller data from the customer’s application to the cloud solution
• Email API to be consumed by the customer’s application for sending emails
• Storing high resolution images in Azure Blob Storage and use SAS (shared access signature) URLs for security concerns and filtering
• Integrated cloud-based Azure SQL database for data storage and accessibility
• Agile project management with defined sprints

Architecture Diagram

Benefits Achieved by the Customer

• Through smart integration of automated immigration clearance, the customer will successfully be able to enable highest operational efficiency.
• The solution will facilitate the customer to deliver the best experience to passengers, as scanners implemented at checkpoints will automatically register their details and save it on the Azure cloud with high security.
• The ICA officer will be easily able to access all demographic details for validating the passenger’s identification and immigration clearance.
• Azure cloud-based deployment will result in zero downtime for application along with auto scaling.

Tech Stack