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Good practice Imported

ASYPX — Cook Islands Immigration's UNCTAD-Built Risk Engine Cuts Border Processing to Under 60 Seconds

Cook Islands · Avarua · See the Cook Islands profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 32% 67/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Immigration Cook Islands, with UN Trade and Development's ASYCUDA platform, rolled out a 2nd-generation passenger risk-screening module (ASYPX) at Rarotonga's airport in September 2025, cutting average border processing to under 60 seconds per traveller.

<60 seconds
Average passenger processing time

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Immigration Cook Islands (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration)
Period
2022-2025
Keywords
border management, immigration risk screening, algorithmic risk targeting, e-government

Context

Immigration Cook Islands introduced the ASYCUDAWorld Passenger Module (ASYPX) in 2022, built with UNCTAD under the New Zealand MFAT-supported PACER Plus programme, to read passport MRZ data and apply rules-based risk management to flag travellers for checks.

Activities

In September 2025, after UNCTAD-led training in July 2025, Immigration Cook Islands launched a second-generation ASYPX at Rarotonga International Airport, strengthening analytics and reporting, with further rollout planned to maritime border points.

Results

The government reports the upgraded system has reduced average passenger processing time to under 60 seconds.

Conclusions

The system is best characterised as an automated, rules-driven risk-targeting engine rather than a trained statistical model, and no independent audit of its risk-flagging accuracy has been published.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Immigration Cook Islands officers, UNCTAD trainers

Conditions for success

  • Continued UNCTAD technical support
  • MRZ data quality

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Data sources

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