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DOJ mulls use of AI profiling at airports to thwart trafficking

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Jacque Manabat, ABS-CBN News

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Travelers line up at airline counters to process their travel documents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 in Pasay City on June 9, 2023. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News/File" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/news/06/14/20230609-naia-t3-crowd-jc-11.jpg"/><figcaption>Travelers line up at airline counters to process their travel documents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 in Pasay City on June 9, 2023. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News/File</figcaption></figure></div>MANILA — The Department of Justice (DOJ) is mulling the use of artificial intelligence (AI) profiling at airports to thwart cases of human trafficking. &quot;&#x27;Yung profiling natin, baka kailangan gumamit tayo ng artificial intelligence,&quot; Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said. &quot;We’ll try to see if we can use artificial intelligence to vet many people who want to leave, especially those prone to human trafficking,&quot; he said as his agency led the first coordination meeting for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Task Force Against Trafficking at NAIA. (We may need to use artificial intelligence for our profiling. We&#x27;ll try to see if we can use artificial intelligence to vet many people who want to leave, especially those prone to human trafficking.)The Philippines is one of the largest migrant countries in the world, according to United Nations Global Programme against Trafficking in Human Beings. This sizable migrant population includes some illegal migrants and victims of human trafficking.&quot;Marami kumikita sa pagbebenta o naglalako sa mga tao na naghahanap ng trabaho. May mga kababayan lang na tumibay sa kanilang mga isipan na mabuti ang mabuhay sa ibang bansa, wag lang sa Pilipinas,&quot; Remulla said.(Many people are earning from selling people who are looking for work. Some people believe that living abroad is much better than staying in the Philippines.)The Dubai International Airport in 2018 began piloting a &quot;smart tunnel&quot; that uses a system of 80 cameras to scan travelers&#x27; faces and irises, allowing preregistered passengers to verify their identity in seconds without having to present passports or other documents.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/06/10/23/naia-hit-by-another-power-outage">NAIA hit by another power outage amid privatization talks</a></li></ul>Meanwhile, Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Norman Tansingco said that they offload around 20 departing and arriving passengers at NAIA alone every day. Profiling and processing travelers within the international standard of 45 seconds per passenger is also a challenge for immigration officers, &quot;particularly when a terminal is overflowing with passengers, he said. “It is not a secret that NAIA T3 experiences daily congestion. The job of the IO (Immigration Officer) is not the mechanical stamping of arrival and departure. An IO is given only 45 seconds to decide where to clear or stop the departure of a passenger,&quot; Tansingco said.“We are running beyond our capacities, overloaded, underpowered, and under-structured. As part of IACAT, we are given the last frontier of the Philippine border in terms of trafficking,&quot; he added.The BI plans to propose to the Manila International Airport Authority to reschedule the terminal reassignment program. For weeks, departing passengers have piled up at immigration counters at NAIA T3 following terminal reassignments.Last June 1, Jeju Air, Ethiopian Airlines, Thai Airways, and Gulf Air were transferred to Terminal 3, the biggest in NAIA. On June 16, international flights of Philippine Airlines will transfer to Terminal 1. On July 1, all domestic flights of AirAsia Philippines and Royal Air will move to Terminal 2, while Sunlight Air will be at Terminal 4.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/05/19/23/list-pals-updated-list-of-terminal-assignments-starting-june-16">LIST: PAL&#x27;s updated list of terminal assignments starting June 16</a></li></ul>&quot;As we have observed and base doon statistics, we will propose to MIAA the rescheduling of the terminal reassignment program because we can see that there are still gaps in Terminal 1 that can be adjusted. At Terminal 3, already like EDSA wala kang rush hour kasi 24 hours rush hour na. Even in our mid-duty, kahit mag-CR hindi na pwede. Hindi na makatayo for the entire shift,&quot; Tansingco said.The Bi also said that the number of passengers an Immigration Officer processes in nine hours significantly increased to 370 from 200.The agency plans to put up ‘mobile’ counters on Friday at NAIA’s busiest terminals - T1 and T3.In early June, 59 new immigration officers graduated from the Bureau of Immigration’s Philippine Immigration Academy, Clark, Pampanga. Thirty-seven out of the 59 new IOs will be deployed at NAIA.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/06/09/23/dotr-to-call-on-firms-to-bid-for-naia-privatization">DOTR to call on firms to bid for NAIA privatization</a></li></ul><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=2674861" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

The Department of Justice is mulling the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for passenger profiling at airports.

DOJ mulls use of AI profiling at airports to thwart trafficking

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DOJ mulls use of AI profiling at airports to thwart trafficking

Jacque Manabat,

ABS-CBN News

Published Jun 14, 2023 01:18 PM PHT

Read More:

NAIA

airport

DOJ

profiling

AI profiling

artificial intelligence

immigration

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