Increasing Operational Awareness of Border Security and Management Officers to Detected Forged Documents and Impostors at Border Crossing Points of the OSCE Participating States and Partners for Co-operation

The verification of a genuine travel document is a key component of border checks in recognizing and preventing potential threats, as well as disrupting potential criminal activities. In order to stay ahead of criminal groups utilizing forged documents, countries are continuously updating their travel documents and the security features contained within. Many border control officers in the OSCE region lack up-to-date information on these latest trends in document fraud, as well as on the diversity of new travel document security features. Utilizing active-duty document experts in border security and management agencies from across the OSCE region as trainers, the project organizes basic, advanced, and training of trainers courses on the detection of fraudulent documents and impostors, focusing on new security features including biometric data and electronic components, for first and second-line border police officers. The project also donates magnifiers to the training participants to assist them in recognizing the latest security features in travel documents.

Expected results

With the facilitation of training of trainers courses, this project’s activities aim to establish national pools of trainers who are equipped to conduct trainings on forged documents and impostors within their national services. The study visit organized as the last activity of the training cycle aims to raise awareness of new technologies in travel documents, as well as enhance co-operation between the beneficiary participating State’s border and security management agency BSM agency and the agency being visited.