The $50 million roll-out of SmartGates has been completed with all 83 gates now in operation across Australia’s eight international airports.

This week also marked the 10 millionth passenger to have self-processed through departure SmartGates since the first gate was installed in June last year.

The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton said that the completion delivers on the Australian Government’s commitment towards streamlined border control processes and enhanced border protection capability at our international airports.

“SmartGate’s allow outgoing passengers the ability to self-process quickly and easily through immigration,” Mr Dutton said.

“The Australian Government is strongly committed to the effective management of the movement of people across our border and the introduction of this technology is critical to improving our ability to accurately confirm the identity of travellers.”

“Automating the departure process will enable the ABF to meet the challenges of increasing traveller numbers, whilst at the same time allowing ABF officers to focus on travellers who pose a risk at the border.”

The departures SmartGate uses state-of-the-art biometric facial recognition technology to confirm the identity of the traveller, with one SmartGate having the ability to process upwards of 110 people per hour, with as many as 150 people processed per hour during busy periods.

There are 25 gates operational in Sydney, 18 in Melbourne, 12 in Brisbane, nine in Perth, six on the Gold Coast and in Adelaide, four in Darwin and three in Cairns.