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8
October
2025

Entry/Exit System: Fundamental rights guidance for managers

The Entry/Exit System (EES), launching in 2025, will register non-EU nationals crossing the EU’s external borders. This FRA guidance supports managers overseeing the operation of the new system. It helps them to ensure compliance with EU fundamental rights. It outlines operational considerations: clear communication, dignified biometric data collection and data protection. It also addresses staff training needs. Based on fieldwork at 10 border crossing points in 6 Member States, the guidance will ensure rights are respected under the new system. A separate guidance publication for border guards accompanies this publication.

Facilities at BCPs are often limited in space. Waiting times may lead to difficulties for non-EU nationals, which is an issue that goes beyond the context of the EES but could be significantly exacerbated by its operation. This issue requires appropriate design and queue management.

The following findings were achieved through qualitative research.

  • The infrastructure for first- and second-line checks at the researched BCPs varies widely, with airports generally better equipped to manage passenger flows.
  • At sea and land borders the high volume of vehicular and pedestrian traffic can exacerbate delays and put non-EU nationals in an uncomfortable position, especially when adequate shelter is not provided. For example, a shift leader in the port of Bari (Italy) noted that ‘passenger numbers have increased crazily, there is no space … And when there are so many people, it is also difficult to identify critical situations.’ A stakeholder in Kapitan Andreevo (Bulgaria) described how ‘people get off the bus, go through the checks and stand on the side while the bus moves … If the check lasts, say, two hours, for two hours the passengers stand wherever they find [a place].’
  • A shift leader at Warsaw airport in Poland noted that the EES may have a positive effect on queues: ‘often passengers have a lot of these stamps [in their passports] and [to] count it all, it takes time. And if the system calculates these days of stay on its own, I think it will definitely have a positive effect.’
  • Authorities in France identified the waiting conditions and the modalities of collecting biometric data as among the issues that may affect the respect for human dignity. Bulgarian authorities noted that the introduction of the EES would lead to longer processing times at BCPs, potentially impacting on the treatment of non-EU nationals.

The border guards survey revealed the following findings.

  • Border guards experienced with e-gates mentioned the following as effective measures to facilitate passenger flow: onsite guidance by queue managers (79 %), clear signs on who can use the gates (76 %) and the presence and reachability of the company responsible for technical maintenance (74 %) (n = 140) [2] n’ denotes the number of border guards who responded to the specific question across all nine border crossing points in which the fieldwork was carried out, out of a total of 177 participants to the survey. The total number of respondents for each question takes into account both respondents who gave substantial answers to the questions and those who selected the answer options ‘I do not know’ or ‘I prefer not to say’. It does not take into account questionnaire responses in which no answer option was selected.


     
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  • Most responding officers (87 %) consider the availability of support staff such as queue assistants or cultural mediators as useful to carry out checks in a way that reduces hardship for people with specific needs in case of long queues (n = 177).

Under Article 7 of the Schengen Borders Code (Regulation (EU) 2016/399), border guards must fully respect human dignity when checking people, in particular in cases involving people with specific needs. Under Article 10 of the EES Regulation, the use of the EES must respect the Charter, the ECHR and, for children, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is binding on the EU and all its Member States, protects the rights of people with disabilities, for example, by ensuring that transportation is accessible (Article 9).

The following guidance may help national authorities to promote the dignified treatment of non-EU nationals while their personal data are processed in the EES. It may also fall into the remit of senior officers at BCPs.

  • Guidance 2.1: Supporting, where appropriate, negotiations on space allocation with the entity responsible for the BCP infrastructure to ensure adequate space for waiting areas, self-service systems and first- and second-line checks.
  • Guidance 2.2: Providing guidance and support to BCPs on how to provide proper waiting areas with seating, sufficient toilets, drinking water and, at land BCPs and seaports, sheltered places for pedestrians and vehicle passengers to protect them from sun, rain and snow.
  • Guidance 2.3: Making all reasonable efforts to support BCPs to keep waiting times short, for example, through effective information provision, queue management and adequate staffing and equipment.
  • Guidance 2.4: Encouraging BCPs to develop emergency protocols, particularly at seaports and land BCPs, to ensure that non-EU nationals’ fundamental rights are respected in cases of prolonged delays.
  • Guidance 2.5: Regularly monitoring if there is sufficient space for EES-related second-line checks at BCPs, without interfering with the space needed for interviewing asylum applicants or for identifying potential victims of trafficking in human beings.