A heightened global security network has prevented more than 20 suspected and known terrorists from applying for visas to enter Australia.
The new enhanced screening system in Australia uses biometric data to match the applicants against a known/suspected terrorist watch list in the U.S.
The applications were made by people seeking a combination of business and short-term holiday visas, reported The Australian.
The cases include a Pakistani national who applied for a visitor visa and an African-born European and a Sudanese-born Bosnian national who both applied for business visitor visas.
In a 2016 pilot run of the system 950 biometric referrals were sent to the U.S. which returned a 90 per cent match rate and identified 14 suspected or known terrorists attempting to come into Australia via a third country.
The system uses intelligence from the Five Eyes countries – U.S, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and, for example, allows Australia to do real-time comparisons of U.S. data sets.
People seeking to enter Australia as a refugee under the humanitarian program are all subject to biometric testing.
In 2017, about 500 Iraqi and Sudanese refugees were denied entry to Australia under the humanitarian program after their names were discovered on watch lists, with at least 30 applicants also discovered to be on ASIO watch lists.
A senior intelligence source told The Australian at the time the applicants were among family groups seeking refuge rather than individuals.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is due to meet U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly in Washington on Thursday to discuss Australia’s border protection systems.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for a comment.
Source: Suspected terrorists applying Australian visas caught | Daily Mail Online
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