Abstract:
Governmental authorities worldwide are continuously searching for the best technology to secure their country’s borders. Although several technologies were introduced to Kuwait border ports, the literature showed a lack of published work regarding the evaluation of the effectiveness of biometric mechanisms (BTMs) in Kuwait. The objective of this study is to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of the BTMs in the border ports of the State of Kuwait. The literature was comprehensively reviewed and the evaluation factors of BTMs were established. A questionnaire was designed and distributed. Field visits were carried out. A sample size of 268 employees from the Security Sector of Border Ports (SSBP) of the three border ports of Kuwait; in addition to employees from the General Department of Criminal Evidence (GDCE) were selected. A total of 262 responses were received and analysed. GDCE and SSBP strongly agreed that BTM is effective in job performance. The individuals in GDCE and SSBP expressed that the fingerprint was the most effective BTM and the best in controlling border ports. The results also showed that some of the individuals in the GDCE and SSBP had inadequate knowledge on BTMs’ concepts. The current security technologies in SSBP were: The traditional security system, fraud passport detector and fingerprint mechanism. Kuwait International Airport used these three mentioned technologies, while the land ports and seaport used the traditional security system only. Moreover, fingerprint mechanism is newly introduced at Kuwait International Airport. The use of fingerprint decreased the number of illegal entry from expellees who tried to re-enter the country. Regarding the evaluation of BTM factors “knowledge, time, performance, accuracy and reliability”; the results showed that GDCE considered fingerprint mechanism the best BTM and came in the first place with an approval rate of 49.8%, retinal mechanism was in the second place with 28.2% and facial mechanism came in the third place with 23.3%. In addition, the results showed that SSBP considered fingerprint the best BTM and came in the first place with an approval rate of 47.5%, iris recognition came in the second place with 31.8% and retinal came in the third place with 24.8%. Therefore, GDCE and SSBP considered fingerprint the most effective and the best in controlling the border ports of the state of Kuwait; and came in the first place with 48.4% through the evaluation of all BTM factors, while iris and retinal came in the second place with 26.9% and 26.6% respectively, while facial came in the third place with 17.7%. It is concluded that BTMs are more effective than traditional methods and they are highly demanded and recommended by GDCE and SSBP to control border ports of the State of Kuwait.
