The Sentinel scanner is currently deployed at all Singapore checkpoints to scan travel documents. It is part of a complete system to detect illegal entry and exit from Singapore, and cross-border criminal/terrorism activities.

Sentinel captures images and data on travel documents and conducts forgery detection simultaneously.

It captures high resolution colour images of all types of passports (including biometric passports), Singapore-issued identification documents as well as contact/contactless chips. With a scanning speed of less than 5 seconds per passport, the Sentinel allows efficient clearance of travellers.

Forgery detection

The Sentinel identifies the country of origin of passports and matches against genuine passport templates for possible tampering of such security features as ultra violet, kinegrams and holograms.

Detection of photo substitution

Photo-substitution in passports can be detected by comparing the passport images captured at the entry and exit points - any discrepancy will be instantly detected. The passport biodata page will also undergo Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) and barcode reading to obtain textual information for screening purposes.

Detection of suspicious travel patterns

At land checkpoints, traveller information captured by the Sentinel is linked to the vehicle's licence plate number. This allows suspicious travel patterns to be flagged for further investigation and has led to the detection of car theft syndicates.

Data-mining for detection of other criminal activities

The Sentinel is also linked to back-end systems that perform data-mining on the information and images captured to detect travellers who use different passports to enter Singapore or who have travelled under different names. This has led to successful detection of smuggling and drug trafficking activities.

Detection of criminals and wanted persons

Sentinel scanners can also be linked to facial recognition software and databases of persons of security interest to allow comparison of passport images with the list of wanted persons.