Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I think the report that Senator Nettle is referring to, and the most recent evaluation, is that carried out by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. That was a technical evaluation of SmartGate. The results showed that the percentage of users incorrectly rejected by the system was two per cent and the percentage of falsely identified users was less than one per cent for each presentation of the passport. So in the first case the accuracy was 98 per cent and in the second case it would have been 99 per cent. I think those statistics were referred to by Senator Nettle in the second reading debate. That is the current assessment that we have.

Of course this is technology which is, like any technology, evolving. We will have the trial in Brisbane, and the rollouts in Sydney and Melbourne will follow. Certainly we will have an evaluation from that trial and that will give us an ongoing assessment of it. It is the government’s view that this is technology which is proven—it has been part of a comprehensive three-year trial at Sydney and Melbourne airports. They were much smaller trials, involving a discrete group of passengers, if you like. The ones that we are embarking upon in Brisbane and subsequently in Sydney and Melbourne will be much bigger.