Thales S.A. is a French defence and security company specialising in electrical components. Its products range from radar systems, aircraft electronics, drones, missiles and satellites, to sensors, ID cards, e-Gates, biometric databases and cryptographic tools. The company emerged in the 1890s as a French subsidiary of the forerunner of US conglomerate General Electric.
What I walked through wasn't just an immigration gate. It was a node in a rapidly expanding global infrastructure of digital identity, one being constructed at extraordinary speed, across dozens of countries, by a mix of governments, multilateral organizations, and private technology vendors. The people building it believe they are solving real problems: fraud, statelessness, inefficient public services, financial exclusion.