Case Study: Australian Department of Home Affairs achieves secure, fast mobile ETA processing with SITA's Australian ETA app

Australian Department of Home Affairs - Customer Case Study

The Australian Department of Home Affairs needed to modernize its long‑running Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) service to meet rising traveller expectations and take advantage of new mobile technologies. SITA partnered with the Department (and Arq Group) to design and deliver the Australian ETA app — a secure, mobile-first ETA application that lets eligible travellers apply for an ETA from their iOS or Android device.

SITA implemented an end‑to‑end solution using OCR and NFC to auto‑populate and authenticate passport data, plus selfie-based biometrics with liveness and anti‑spoofing checks, secure local storage and a Privacy by Design approach. Since deployment in October 2020 the SITA-built app has processed applications for thousands of travellers, reduced data-entry errors, sped up applications to minutes, supported rapid app updates driven by user feedback, and won a Gold Award at the DrivenXDesign Sydney Design Awards 2021.

Australian Department of Home Affairs