AutoBorder reaches a major hands-on milestone: first data collection campaign completed in Reading

Almost one year into the AutoBorder project, the consortium has completed its first hands-on data collection campaign, a significant step from planning into practice.

Over two days in early July, partners came together at the University of Reading to run a live data acquisition campaign covering all three of the project's core use cases: a car, a truck, and a coach. Capturing data across these very different vehicle settings, and under a range of real-world conditions from bright daylight through to nighttime, was central to the exercise: the conditions a border crossing actually presents, rather than the ones that would make the technology's job easy.

The campaign was an intensive effort. The team worked well into the night on the first day to make sure a full spread of realistic scenarios was captured. Partners have now moved into analysis phase: examining the quality and viability of what was collected, establishing what the data makes possible under which conditions, and drawing the early conclusions that will steer AutoBorder's technical development and shape how future collections are designed.

The first year of AutoBorder has been about laying foundations: defining what operational users and travellers actually need, working through the ethical, legal and societal questions that sit at the heart of border technology, and building the groundwork for the system itself. This campaign is where that foundational work first meets real-world data.

AutoBorder is a Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action working to make border crossings more seamless and more secure by integrating vehicle-level technologies with biometrics and data exchange, designed from the outset with privacy, fairness and fundamental rights at its core.

There's much more to come as the data is analysed and the results take shape.

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