Introduction

1. The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (Customs and Border Protection) plays a primary role in preventing the illegal movement of people and harmful goods across Australia’s borders. The agency is required to process passengers entering and departing Australia by air or sea, and identify persons of interest consistent with immigration, health, family law, law enforcement, revenue collection, community protection and national security requirements.

2. Customs and Border Protection undertakes ‘end-to-end’ passenger and crew processing to support legitimate travel and the interventions needed to prevent the illegal movement of people and the goods they bring across the border.

End-to-end processing for incoming passengers involves:

• pre-arrival risk assessments based on advance passenger data, information and intelligence to identify potential persons of interest;
• pre-arrival passenger information to support the passenger’s ‘positive entry and exit experience’;
• interventions at the Entry Control Point (ECP)¹ for identity verification, legislative entry processing and to activate secondary assessment of persons of interest;
• assessment of passengers on arrival, including through detector dogs and real-time assessments and response by Customs and Border Protection officers; and
• secondary interventions for the further assessment of persons of interest, including through questioning, baggage examination and personal search by Customs and Border Protection and referrals to other agencies.²

3. Customs and Border Protection’s budget for Program 1.1: Passenger Facilitation in 2011–12 is $235.9 million, covering the inwards and outwards movements of air and sea passengers and crew.³ The number of incoming international air passengers arriving at Australian airports grew from 11 314 569 in 2006–07 to 13 938 152 in 2010–11. Tourism Australia forecasts continuing growth in these numbers, to approximately 17 million incoming air passengers in 2014–15.

4. Future increases in passenger numbers are acknowledged by the Government as a given factor. Accordingly, there is a Variable Funding Agreement in place between Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Finance and Deregulation, which allows for regular adjustments to the funding provided for passenger processing to deal with the increased workload.

5. As set out in the 2011 Federal Budget, over the next four years, commencing in 2011–12, Customs and Border Protection will also realise savings from efficiencies in the primary processing function at airports totalling $34 million. Achieving these savings entails a reduction of 77 Full Time Equivalent staff (FTEs) in 2011–12, which is a reduction of approximately five per cent from 2010–11, and a further 10 FTEs over the subsequent three years.

Automated border clearance through SmartGate

6. SmartGate is an automated border clearance system which gives eligible passengers and crew arriving into Australia’s eight international airports⁴ the option to self-process through passport control at the ECP. Eligible passengers are Australian and New Zealand nationals holding ePassports⁵ who are over 16 years of age. Of the total number of air passenger arrivals in 2010–11, Australian and New Zealand passport holders made up 8.4 million, or 57.1 per cent.

7. SmartGate uses the electronic information in the ePassport and facial recognition technology to perform the Customs and Border Protection and Department of Immigration and Citizenship checks normally undertaken by a Customs and Border Protection officer at the manual ECP. The system was developed by Customs and Border Protection as a response to projected increased traveller numbers, and in recognition that this increase could not be managed by commensurate increases in manual ECPs due to space constraints at airports.

8. In the 2005 Budget, $74.6 million was allocated to Customs and Border Protection over four years, under the Development of Biometrics for Border Control initiative, for the phased implementation of SmartGate. A Lapsing Program Review was conducted in 2008, and the SmartGate program was allocated ongoing operating funding in the 2009 Budget of $4.3–4.4 million annually out to 2012–13. Funding for SmartGate is partially offset by a biometric efficiency dividend, which returns savings to government from the efficiencies generated by automated processing.⁶

9. SmartGate was implemented in stages. The first airport at which SmartGate was implemented was Brisbane, in August 2007. Implementation was completed with the roll-out of SmartGate at Darwin airport in May 2011.

Pre-arrival risk assessment

10. The Government’s 2010 Counter-Terrorism White Paper noted that the physical border is increasingly becoming a secondary layer for risk assessment and intervention. This means that checking and screening commences well before people, cargo, vessels and aircraft cross Australia’s physical border. The White Paper stated that Australia’s approach to border management is intelligence-led and risk-based, to ensure that interventions are focused on high-risk movements of people or goods, while low-risk movements are facilitated smoothly.⁷ The guiding principles endorsed by the Government for border management include:

• working ahead of the border to identify and manage risks;
• focusing on intelligence; and
• increasing the use of early intervention and screening, making processes at the border quicker and smoother.

11. Customs and Border Protection manages movements across the Australian border through a layered approach within the border continuum, where the border is divided into four components: overseas; the maritime zone; the physical border; and domestic pre-departure and post-arrival activities within Australia.⁸ Customs and Border Protection’s Annual Plan 2011–12 lists strategies that map to the different layers in the border continuum. In the overseas layer, working ahead of the border involves analysing advance passenger information to identify high-risk passengers prior to arrival.⁹

12. During 2011–12, Customs and Border Protection progressed the implementation of two phases of an Enhanced Passenger Assessment and Clearance (EPAC) project. EPAC 1, which was completed in February 2012, aims to improve the management of alerts¹⁰ through a new Alert Management System. EPAC 2, due to be completed in two stages in June and December 2012, will deliver enhanced capabilities to collect, store and analyse advance passenger information.

13. Concurrent with the implementation of EPAC 1 and 2, Customs and Border Protection is in the process of implementing a new Passenger Targeting Model (PTM) to improve the intelligence-led, risk-based layered approach to managing border risks, and to maximise the benefits of the new capabilities being delivered under the EPAC project. Customs and Border Protection also conducted a major internal review of traveller risk assessment in August–September 2011. These changes represent a major and complex program of business process transformation in Customs and Border Protection’s approach to passenger risk assessment.

Primary and secondary interventions

14. At the border, Customs and Border Protection makes primary interventions at the ECP to verify identity, respond to risk assessments and activate secondary assessment of persons of interest. Customs and Border Protection also identifies persons of interest through the real-time risk assessment of passengers conducted by its officers in the airport, and through the deployment of detector dogs.

15. Secondary interventions at the border include questioning, baggage examination and search of persons of interest and related follow-on activities. These include formal interviews, and referrals within Customs and Border Protection and to other agencies such as the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

Audit objective, scope and criteria

16. The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of Customs and Border Protection’s risk-based management of end-to-end processing of incoming international air passengers in achieving border security and passenger facilitation outcomes.

17. This audit completes a planned program of audit work in passenger processing. A previous audit report, No. 10 2009–10 Processing of Incoming International Air Passengers¹¹, assessed Customs and Border Protection’s manual processing of incoming international air passengers at the primary line. Consequently, the scope of the current audit was aligned to the three areas not covered previously: automated passenger processing through SmartGate; pre-arrival risk assessment; and secondary intervention outcomes.

18. The audit addressed whether:

• Customs and Border Protection’s pre-arrival risk assessment effectively facilitates low-risk passenger movements and supports appropriate interventions for high-risk passenger movements;
• the SmartGate automated primary clearance facility is achieving its objectives of enabling Customs to process more travellers securely and simply; enhancing border security; and improving identity verification; and
• Customs and Border Protection effectively manages secondary examination interventions for passengers, including referrals to other agencies, on a risk basis.

Overall conclusion

19. Customs and Border Protection is operating in a growing and increasingly complex passenger environment. It is also performing its passenger processing role within increasing resource constraints, reflecting Government decisions made in the 2011 Budget. A risk-based approach to identifying potential persons of interest among incoming passengers is essential to the efficient targeting of resources to appropriate interventions with high-risk passengers, while minimising interventions with low-risk passengers.

20. Almost 14 million international passengers arrived at Australian airports in 2010–11. Customs and Border Protection screened 99 per cent of those passengers before their arrival against alerts for persons of interests within the Passenger Analysis Clearance and Evaluation (PACE) system database. Customs and Border Protection also conducts pre-arrival risk assessments of selected passengers through profiling and risk indicator analysis.

21. Overall, the ANAO concluded that Customs and Border Protection is managing the clearance of incoming international air passengers effectively, in terms of meeting its 2011–12 performance target of clearing 92 per cent of passengers through the Entry Control Point within 30 minutes of their joining the inwards queue. However, Customs and Border Protection’s risk-based approach to passenger clearance has structural weaknesses, gaps and overlaps. The gaps in pre-arrival risk assessment coverage reduce assurance that the identification of high risk passengers is being consistently achieved, and that low-risk passengers are not subject to unnecessary intervention. In addition, while the SmartGate automated border clearance facility works well and passenger usage is increasing, its potential contribution to passenger processing efficiency has not been realised and can be improved.

22. In particular, pre-arrival risk assessment and the development and review of profiles are not guided by a risk prioritisation model. Selection of passengers for pre-arrival risk assessment may be based on data and/or resource availability, and some passengers are being risk assessed several times while others may not be subject to pre-arrival assessment. Limited performance information from operational outcomes means that the effectiveness and efficiency of Customs and Border Protection’s pre-arrival risk assessment profiles cannot be accurately assessed. Customs and Border Protection is aware of the weaknesses in its current pre-arrival risk assessment process and is in the process of addressing these through the analytical capabilities that will be provided by the Enhanced Passenger Assessment and Clearance project and the major organisational changes in progress under a new Passenger Targeting Model.

23. Automated border processing through SmartGate is assisting Customs and Border Protection to achieve its passenger facilitation target, but there is considerable room for improvement in exploiting the efficiencies available through SmartGate. Passenger clearances through SmartGate and savings through the biometric efficiency dividend, while increasing annually, are well below forecasts advised to government in 2009. In particular, the percentage of arriving passengers clearing through SmartGate slowly increased in 2010–11, but has accelerated in 2011–12.¹² Management of SmartGate has been the responsibility of individual airports, with variable results in terms of encouraging and achieving passenger usage. A national strategy for SmartGate, drawing on the effective practices adopted by the better performing airports, and setting out targets for passenger clearance, would assist Customs and Border Protection to improve SmartGate’s performance.

24. The ANAO has made three recommendations directed towards improving Customs and Border Protection’s management of incoming international air passenger processing and risk assessment.

Key findings

Incoming passenger processing

25. The key performance indicator (KPI) for Customs and Border Protection’s Passenger Facilitation program objective set out in the 2011–12 Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS) is the percentage of passengers processed within 30 minutes of joining the inwards queue. This is referred to operationally as the facilitation rate. In 2010–11, the performance standard for this KPI was 95 per cent of passengers processed within 30 minutes. As part of the efficiency measure in the 2011 Budget, and in recognition of the likely impact of reduced staffing numbers on passenger processing operations, the Government agreed that the facilitation rate for 2011–12 would be 92 per cent.

26. Customs and Border Protection has consistently achieved its passenger facilitation rate performance target. It has also implemented broadly nationally consistent planning systems and processes, particularly the Customs and Border Protection Airport Planning System (CAPS) tool, which enable the effective management of resources while also balancing risk and workload. Governance arrangements supporting passenger facilitation and recent initiatives are improving communication between the international airports and central office and this is a positive development. Customs and Border Protection’s Passenger Facilitation program performs well in terms of the PBS target and is underpinned by sound planning processes and governance structures.

SmartGate performance

27. The objectives for SmartGate agreed by the Government in 2005 were to ensure:

• more efficient processing of increasing passenger numbers; and
• secure identity verification that will improve border protection.

28. Customs and Border Protection implemented SmartGate effectively between 2007 and 2010. SmartGate is being used by an increasing number of arriving passengers, and very high satisfaction rates continue to be recorded by passengers in monthly surveys.

29. In 2010–11, 1.81 million passengers successfully used SmartGate. However, this figure is well below the 4.16 million passengers forecast for 2010–11 in estimates provided to government when the SmartGate program was renewed in the 2009 Budget. Annual funding reductions through the biometric efficiency dividend are a function of SmartGate usage and are therefore similarly well behind forecasted returns—$2.67 million returned in 2010–11 against the 2009 forecast for 2010–11 of $6.12 million.

30. The trend in the national SmartGate clearance rate is shown in Figure S1. The rate increased only marginally in 2010–11, from 33 per cent of eligible arriving passengers clearing SmartGate in July 2010 to 37 per cent in June 2011. This coincided with a period when Customs and Border Protection’s Executive was receiving incorrect SmartGate performance information, which overstated the clearance rate by up to 25 per cent. In 2011–12, the improvement in the clearance rate has accelerated, reaching 46 per cent in March 2012. The two largest volume airports—Sydney and Melbourne—were among the poorest performers in 2010–11 but are now part of the improving trend.

Figure S.1: SmartGate national clearance rate

Source: Customs and Border Protection

31. With regard to the objective of improving border protection through secure identity verification, achievement of this objective is not able to be assessed. SmartGate introduced a technically superior process for identity verification than was available at the manual ECP, but the introduction of new ePassport readers at the ECP during 2011–12 has removed this gap for ePassport authentication and narrowed it for facial recognition. No data is available to assess either SmartGate’s facial recognition performance compared with the manual ECPs, or its contribution in detecting fraudulent passports.¹³

Improving SmartGate

32. The implementation phase of SmartGate concluded in July 2010, and SmartGate was placed on a business-as-usual footing consistent with normal corporate management practice. However, SmartGate has since lacked national direction in improving passenger clearance performance. Management of SmartGate has largely been the responsibility of individual airports. There has been no overall clearance rate target and no documented national strategy or plan for achieving SmartGate’s objectives. Customs and Border Protection advised the ANAO in March 2012 that a high-level SmartGate strategy has been drafted and would be finalised by mid-2012. Performance targets for SmartGate presentation and clearance rates have been included in the Portfolio Budget Statements for 2012–13.

33. The willingness of incoming passengers to use SmartGate, and their ability to do so correctly, is influenced by a range of behavioural and environmental factors, particularly educational information, signage, wayfinding and marshalling. Individual airports have primary responsibility for SmartGate and this has led to a variety of treatments and approaches to signage, wayfinding and marshalling across the airports. There are examples of individual airport practices and strategies positively influencing SmartGate presentation and clearance rates. It would be beneficial for Customs and Border Protection to identify and promulgate such practices nationally.

34. There is a gap between the rates of SmartGate presentation and clearance, sitting consistently at around eight percentage points. The difference in the rates represents those passengers who present to SmartGate but are ‘rejected’ and referred to the manual ECP. Reducing the number of unnecessary referrals converts directly into increased clearances. Over half these referrals are caused by face recognition failure, of which a significant proportion are false failures. Many of these are caused by the way passengers present themselves to the cameras at the SmartGate. The presence of a Customs and Border Protection marshal at the gate has been demonstrated to reduce these instances. In addition, the face matching threshold score set in SmartGate can be lowered to be more tolerant of these behavioural factors. However, lowering the threshold also increases the risk that a passenger who is not the person on the ePassport presented will be falsely accepted. Customs and Border Protection testing indicates that marginally lowering the matching threshold can potentially reduce the false failure rate by 25 per cent, without significantly increasing the rate of false acceptance. There would therefore be merit in Customs and Border Protection considering this option, balanced against the relevant risks involved.

35. Referrals are also caused by system errors and anomalies. Quickly identifying and correcting these is essential to ensuring that their impact on the referral rate and on passenger confidence in SmartGate is minimised. There are instances where this has not happened. SmartGate does not produce regular exception reporting to highlight system errors and anomalies, and there would be benefit in Customs and Border Protection enhancing its monitoring and diagnostic tools to improve early identification of errors and anomalies in SmartGate data.

Pre-arrival risk assessment of passengers

36. Customs and Border Protection’s pre-arrival risk assessment capabilities and activities are currently distributed at the national and local airport level. Nationally, the primary capability resides in the Passenger Analysis Unit (PAU), which analyses advance passenger information to identify persons of interest and generate alerts to trigger appropriate interventions with such persons when they arrive. Locally, Passenger Operations at each airport have the ability to generate intelligence-based profiles using an Automated Profiling Tool (APT), and incoming passenger details are automatically matched against these profiles and evaluated to generate alerts. Customs and Border Protection’s current approach to pre-arrival risk assessment embodies a number of structural weaknesses that detract from a risk-based approach.

37. The PAU possesses the strongest risk analysis capability, drawing on its access to Passenger Name Record data, and assesses approximately 45 per cent of incoming passengers. Passengers are also screened against a range of APT profiles targeting particular risk factors, but matches from APT profiles are not usually evaluated in depth. There is no national policy or guidance framework for APT profile creation or pre-flight screening conducted by airport operations. Coverage and quality of this activity varies between airports. At the time the audit was undertaken, airport operations areas lacked the capacity to develop high quality profiles on a consistent basis and to conduct more than cursory profile match evaluation. These functions are in the process of being transferred to the PAU, under the Passenger Targeting Model (PTM).

38. The risk basis of the pre-arrival assessment of passengers is affected by capability limitations. The PAU makes assessment decisions based on the risk of a flight, meaning that a high-risk passenger on a low-risk flight may not be assessed. Other risk assessments, including through pre-flight screening, are influenced by resource availability. There is duplication between the various levels of risk assessment activity—the same passenger may be assessed several times.

39. Furthermore, there is no risk-based priority model to guide the allocation of pre-arrival risk assessment resources and the development and review of profiles. Illicit drugs, as the highest of the ten border risks, is well covered by profiles, but other border risks receive less coverage. This means that there is a lack of assurance that Customs and Border Protection’s risk assessment efforts are aligned to its risk framework or are directed to the right risks.

40. Performance information for pre-arrival risk assessment is extremely limited. There are gaps in Customs and Border Protection’s ability to link actual operational outcomes to the pre-arrival assessment products that triggered the relevant passenger intervention. Accordingly, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of Customs and Border Protection’s pre-arrival risk functions as a whole, and to evaluate the effectiveness of particular profiles. This reduces assurance that the identification of high-risk passengers through pre-arrival risk assessment is being consistently achieved, and that low-risk passengers are not subject to unnecessary intervention.

Improving passenger risk assessment

41. Customs and Border Protection recognised in 2010 the need for a new approach to passenger targeting to address the gaps in its risk-based passenger assessment activities, and to better exploit the potential benefits from the additional capabilities being delivered in phases 1 and 2 of the EPAC project. Progress in the first half of 2011 in implementing the PTM was slow. The Review of Traveller Risk Assessment, commissioned by the CEO in August 2011, gave prominence to the key gaps and challenges, and prompted immediate organisational and functional changes. Some of those changes created new intra-agency boundaries, and Customs and Border Protection needs to take care that governance arrangements under the PTM provide for necessary cooperation across those boundaries.

42. The implementation of the recommendations of the Review of Traveller Risk Assessment, the completion of EPAC 2 and the PTM are in progress. Assessing that progress was beyond the scope of the audit. However, in order to deliver improved passenger risk assessment through those change processes, priority should be given to:

• improving performance measurement of passenger risk assessment activities;
• better prioritisation of effort according to risk through the proposed Risk Priority Model; and
• developing appropriate internal governance structures to provide for cooperation across intra-agency boundaries.

Secondary intervention outcomes

43. A functioning feedback loop into the risk assessment process from secondary intervention outcomes is critical to ensuring that:

• risk indicators, and the risk analysis that they support, are accurate and relevant; and
• profiles are effectively and efficiently targeting risk.

44. Reporting of secondary intervention outcomes is available through Customs and Border Protection’s Baggage Action General Statistics (BAGS) system, which records all secondary examination activity relating to incoming and outgoing travellers. The BAGS system is Customs and Border Protection’s only universal and systematic capability producing data on intervention outcomes. It is the source of statistics on detection outcomes, by airport and by selection type, that are included in high-level internal management information reports.

45. The BAGS system is unable to link detection outcomes with the pre-arrival risk assessments that triggered the relevant passenger intervention. This means that existing performance reports on pre-arrival risk assessment, drawing on BAGS data, have very little qualitative content and do not provide a reliable basis for assessing the effectiveness of Customs and Border protection’s pre-arrival risk assessment activity.

46. The ANAO, in conjunction with Customs and Border Protection, tested and showed the potential of cross-database data analysis to produce more reliable data on detection outcomes from pre-arrival risk assessment effort. This analysis required substantial manual effort to extract and query data, and will therefore require further cost-benefit consideration, but it potentially provides Customs and Border Protection with a stronger basis for assessing the performance of individual APT profiles.

47. Customs and Border Protection and the AFP have closely intersecting roles at Australia’s international airports. The relationship between the two agencies at airports is sound and effective. Both agencies, at airports and central offices, gave consistent and positive feedback to the ANAO about their relationship. The only significant issue observed was the AFP’s acceptance of referrals of suspected internal drug couriers, which requires the AFP to accept Customs and Border Protection grounds for suspicion in such cases. In 2010–11, the AFP declined 27 per cent of such referrals. The ‘transfer of suspicion’ issue is being actively managed by Customs and Border Protection and the AFP. In the longer term, the potential introduction of body scanners, currently being trialled, and the resultant provision of objective evidence is likely to improve this process.

Summary of agency responses

48. A copy of the proposed report was provided to Customs and Border Protection for formal comment. Relevant extracts of the proposed report were also provided to the AFP for formal comment. Customs and Border Protection provided the following summary response:

Customs and Border Protection welcomes the ANAO’s report on ‘Processing and Risk Assessing Incoming International Air Passengers’.

Australia was one of the first countries to implement an automated border management system, using the security features and biometric information inherent in the ePassport. The report acknowledges that Customs and Border Protection implemented SmartGate effectively, and it is now being used by an increasing number of arriving passengers, with very high levels of satisfaction. Customs and Border Protection agrees with the ANAO’s recommendations that SmartGate presentation and clearance rates can be improved. New targets have been included in the 2012–13 Portfolio Budget Statements for SmartGate presentation and clearance rates. Improvements to SmartGate reporting are being implemented, and a strategic plan for SmartGate is under development. Customs and Border Protection received $7.9m funding through the 2012–13 Budget to increase SmartGate capacity, which will assist in achieving higher presentation targets.

Customs and Border Protection continues to focus significant effort on improving its intelligence led, risk based approach to border protection and welcomes ANAO’s confirmation that the direction currently being taken to improve the pre-arrival risk assessment process will address weaknesses in the current approach. Customs and Border Protection agrees with the priority areas identified in the recommendation and is ensuring that these receive significant focus during the change process.

49. The AFP provided the following summary response:

The draft report extract provides a positive picture of the AFP and the ACBPS. It contains no recommendations for changes to how the AFP conducts its operations. The AFP notes that two issues were highlighted as being of concern by both the AFP and ACPBS—presumptive drug testing and referral of internal couriers.

We note that in relation to presumptive drug testing, ACPBS has commissioned an independent review of its presumptive drug testing processes and procedures and has undertaken remedial action. The AFP has no comment regarding the current presumptive testing regime.

Paragraph 7.39 notes that the number of referrals is decreasing over time (342 in 2008–09 to 140 in 2010–11), but the proportion of referrals declined by the AFP has been roughly consistent (Figure 7.3). The AFP notes that without an increase in technical detection capability, the current trend in terms of AFP acceptance of referrals will continue.

In relation to referral of internal couriers (paragraph 7.40), the AFP is supportive of attempts to increase accountability for referral decisions and to clarify reasons for decisions by ACPBS. The AFP supports the provision of more joint information sessions so staff, particularly those new to the Aviation environment from both organisations, have a contemporary understanding of this issue. It is hoped through these training sessions the AFP’s reasons behind rejecting referrals will be better understood.

Footnotes

[1]  The Entry Control Point, also known as the primary line, is the point at which incoming passengers present their passport and incoming passenger card to a Customs and Border Protection officer, who conducts the primary immigration clearance function on behalf of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

[2]   Attorney-General’s Portfolio Budget Statements 2011–12, p. 115.

[3]   ibid., p. 115.

[4]  The eight international airports are Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

[5]  An ePassport is a machine readable passport containing a contactless Radio Frequency Identification microchip on which data is stored and protected by Public Key Infrastructure. Australian ePassports were first issued on 24 October 2005.

[6]  Biometric efficiency dividend reductions are subtracted from funding increases provided to Customs and Border Protection for workload growth under the Variable Funding Agreement mentioned in paragraph 4.

[7]  Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Counter-Terrorism White Paper, Canberra 2010, pp. 1–3.

[8]  Customs and Border Protection, Annual Report 2010–11, p. 3.

[9]  Customs and Border Protection, Annual Plan 2011–12, p. 6.

[10]  An alert is a flag against a traveller or travel document in Customs and Border Protection’s Passenger Analysis Clearance and Evaluation (PACE) system indicating that the person or document has been identified as being of interest and may be subject to intervention.

[11]  Australian National Audit Office, Processing of Incoming International Air Passengers, Audit Report No. 10, ANAO, Canberra, tabled on 16 November 2009.

[12]  The trend in the SmartGate clearance rate is shown in Figure S1. The clearance rate stood at 46 per cent of eligible passengers in March 2012, compared with 37 per cent in June 2011.

[13]  A parallel performance audit of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s management of ePassports addresses issues of ePassport security. See ANAO Report No.33 2011–12, Management of ePassports, tabled on 22 May 2012.