High-Tech Border Security: Current and Emerging Trends

Border security is an essential part of a country’s defense and a vital concern for government agencies worldwide. The complex challenges of preventing terrorism, unauthorized immigration, and drug trafficking have spurred numerous technologies. These reduce the unlawful entry of migrants and the smuggling of dangerous items through ports of entry. This article will explore how current technologies, including biometric identification and artificial intelligence (AI), have revolutionized border surveillance and how regulation should inform the development and deployment of these technologies.

As biometric systems using advanced facial recognition software become increasingly embedded in airports and other ports of entry, they will be subject to intense criticism. Civil liberties watchdogs will scrutinize their negative impact on legal migrants and asylum seekers fleeing human rights abuses. Government spending watchdogs and other policymakers will also watch closely to ensure these high-tech border security systems deliver on their promise to improve the speed and scale of security monitoring.

How Technologies Aid in Border Security

Border agencies in the past mainly needed physical strength and good observational skills. With increased use of technology in border control, a border patrol agent now must operate advanced imaging and identification equipment. They also must understand and use data from interconnected sensing technologies.

Additionally, border agents must work with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies to share information and coordinate efforts. And they need to effectively communicate with the public to explain procedures and resolve potential conflicts.

Preventing a Single Point of Failure at Border Checkpoints

While border technologies and agents’ skills have become increasingly sophisticated, a critical aim of the new generation of interconnected border technology is to reduce the single point of failure problem.

A would-be terrorist could pass through an initial airport checkpoint, having smuggled a concealed explosive device past an overworked Homeland Security agent monitoring a scanner. However, today’s airports are increasingly equipped with next-generation sensor systems connected to  . These generate centralized real-time data available to local station agents, creating multiple points of intervention.

For example, data gathered from cameras equipped with facial recognition technology, assisted by AI, could connect the bomb smuggler’s face to a known terrorist. That connection could then provide multiple intervention points by alerting nearby security agents to his location before he boards the airplane.

Regulation of Artificial Intelligence in Border Security Technology

A 2021 report issued by the European Parliament outlines several challenges regarding AI technology in border control and security. These include concerns over their inconsistent accuracy and “serious doubts… about the scientific basis and reliability of emotion-detection algorithms.” The report highlights fundamental rights concerns over discrimination, data protection, privacy risks, and unlawful profiling.

The report ultimately suggests that regulators concerned with AI technology in international border management use a framework similar to nuclear weapons control. Namely, they must recognize AI is a powerful tool that will have significant consequences in border control and other domains. The danger is to assume that a given consequence is inevitable; AI must be managed, studied, and regulated.

Types of Border Security Technology Currently Used

Before exploring advancements in high-tech border security, here’s a brief overview of the technologies commonly used by US border agents today. They fall into four categories:

1. Physical barriers
2. Technologies to detect contraband cargo
3. Border surveillance technologies to track people in remote areas
4. Biometric identification technologies

Physical Barriers

Physical barriers include border walls and fences, such as the barriers built along the 1,954-mile Mexico-US border. According to the US Customs and Border Protection (CPB), the wall consists of 354 miles of pedestrian barriers and 300 miles of vehicle barriers along the southwest border.

• PROS: Useful for apprehending in densely populated regions where law enforcement agents are nearby.
• CONS: Largely ineffective, according to many studies; susceptible to demolition and easily breached; expensive to build and maintain; migrants can cross through wide border wall gaps.

Cargo Scanners

Most illegal drugs are smuggled through ports of entry, often mixed in with legal products and concealed in secret compartments, including vehicle gas tanks. Using modern sensors, border agents can detect contraband through minute changes in air pressure or the composition of gases emitted from a vehicle, container, or package.

• PROS: The latest generation of x-ray and gamma-ray scanners are highly effective in detecting contraband.
• CONS: These scanners are expensive and require extensive training for border agents to use them effectively. They are also very large, so installing them at every port can halve the number of vehicle lanes.

Border Surveillance Tech to Track People in Remote Areas

Border patrol agents rely on various connected electronic surveillance technologies to identify and track people crossing the border in remote areas.

These devices include fixed ground sensors. They are buried in the ground and use seismic, acoustic, or infrared technology to detect people or vehicles crossing the border. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced the deployment of sensor-equipped robot dogs at the southwest border to assist CBP personnel.

• PROS: In-ground sensors allow a wide range of coverage and can be used in rugged terrain.
• CONS: Sensors are susceptible to false positives (e.g., animals crossing the border); require maintenance and regular replacement of batteries; and are easily vandalized.

Other connected detection devices include fixed surveillance towers equipped with radar and high-resolution and infrared cameras to monitor up to a seven-mile radius.

• PROS: These technologies are highly effective in identifying people and vehicles from long distances and are relatively low-cost.
• CONS: Terrain can block radar; highly visible and easily avoided by unauthorized border crossers.

From the air, border patrol agents also use a combination of planes and helicopters that carry advanced infrared cameras and night-vision equipment. On-board agents can detect and follow radar pings, alerting law enforcement on the ground.

• PROS: Planes and helicopters are highly effective in tracking border crossers and can quickly cover large areas.
• CONS: Expensive to operate and maintain; limited by weather conditions.

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, have become an increasingly favored tool for border patrol agents. They’ve enabled them to improve their situational awareness and surveil vast stretches of rural borderland.

Since 2006, thirty-six-foot-long Predator B drones, patrolling the border from nineteen thousand feet, have captured live video and detailed infrared and radar images of people on the ground on the US-Mexico border. Border agents have recently replaced these large and expensive military-grade models with smaller, nimbler ones. These can fit in the back of a patrol vehicle and be airborne within minutes.

• PROS: These drones can cover large areas quickly and effectively at a relatively low cost.
• CONS: Limited battery life and range; raise privacy concerns.

Biometric Identification Devices

Recent technological advancements have produced a wide variety of biometric identification devices using physical characteristics to identify people crossing borders. These technologies include digital passports containing biometric data on an embedded RFID chip. They also use fingerprint readers, iris scanners, and networked cameras using facial recognition software backed by artificial intelligence. This biometric data is shared across  .

• PROS: Highly reliable, accurate, and require no direct contact with border agents.
• CONS: Biometrics raise privacy and data protection concerns. Border agents need extensive training to use them effectively, and they’re susceptible to bias and inaccuracies for people of color.

What Works to Promote Border Security? More Technology and Enforcement versus Policy Alternatives

The debate over border security is generally divided between two camps. Some believe that governments can seal their borders against unauthorized immigration by force. Others argue that any attempt to do so will be in vain.

Further complicating matters, both sides point to different metrics to gauge their preferred policy’s success. As Pew Research Center data shows, BPD encounters along the US-Mexico border have recently increased. Border hawks cite this as evidence that the current US administration’s comparatively less punitive immigration policies encourage unauthorized migration. But BPD data also shows an increase in migrant deaths along the southern border. Those supporting less restrictive policies point to this as evidence of the harms of stricter border enforcement.

Regardless, policy makers must recognize that border security does not exist in isolation. It interacts within a dynamic constellation of forces—including changes to global economies, military and public health matters, and climate change.

Technological Innovations in Border Security

The conversation around border security has shifted toward technological advancements enabling “smart” or “virtual” border walls. These systems easily integrate data collected by advanced cameras, sensors, biometric identification devices, and other detection systems. As these surveillance systems begin to creep beyond the scope of border checkpoints and ports of entry, human rights advocates carefully monitor their broader impact.

Facial Recognition’s Rapid Advance

While it’s not easy to identify the most successful technology in border security, governments worldwide are rapidly expanding their use of facial recognition technology. According to the CBP, from June 2017 through November 2021, they processed more than 117 million passengers using their Biometric Facial Comparison technology. Promotional materials present testimonials touting the convenience of the new biometrics. On the other hand, Pew Research Center data shows that some groups have low levels of trust that law enforcement will use facial recognition technology responsibly.

Smaller, Smarter, and Cheaper Drones

As previously mentioned, CPB agents have replaced the expensive and massive Predator B drones with two smaller models. These include a fixed-wing model that resembles a tiny airplane and a vertical takeoff and landing quadcopter. This technology enhances agents’ situational awareness and enables them to silently identify and track unauthorized border crossers.

The drone can send tracking coordinates and use a laser to provide precise location information for targets to agents on the ground. Border Patrol reports having more than 135 of these systems in use throughout the country, and they plan to have 460 in-flight drones patrolling the southwest border.

Meanwhile, BPD has trained nearly six hundred drone operators and expects that number to double next year. The training series includes online education and testing at a Federal Aviation Administration facility to obtain a drone pilot’s license. Agents receive additional training on CBP policies and regulations concerning drones’ proper operation.

The Future of High-Tech Tools in Border Security

Today, various tech start-ups and governmental agencies are developing AI drones that no longer need human operators. The EU-funded AirSens project has developed swarm intelligence algorithms and data processing for networked self-flying drones. Border patrol and law enforcement agencies could deploy these over predesignated border areas to scan and track individuals on the ground without input from a human.

The US Border in 2060

It’s possible to imagine that borders in 2060 will feature a silent circulating layer of thousands of tiny autonomous drones equipped with an array of immensely powerful sensors. Combining the power of AI-enabled facial recognition and big data analytics, this aerial surveillance swarm would track the location and identity of every person under its gaze.

Traditional border walls and checkpoints would become relics replaced by ambient surveillance that’s impossible to avoid or escape. The benefits could include a sense of safety and wellbeing for the fortunate citizens and travelers on the protected side of the network. However, the impact could be terrifying or even deadly for the migrants, refugees, and other people targeted by this new technology.

Despite these disparate costs and benefits, it’s clear that already high-tech border security technology will become more sophisticated and widespread, as well as held to higher  , in coming years. Policymakers, citizens, and travelers must critically monitor the development and implementation of these technologies to ensure that law enforcement agencies entrusted with protecting our safety use them responsibly and ethically.

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