Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton today said the process already was being tested at Canberra airport with a 90 per cent success rate.

Mr Dutton told the National Press Club of his hi-tech plans to welcome overseas air passengers.

“I want them to walk seamlessly … off the A380 and — in time, and we’re not far off this — with facial recognition on the move, peoples’ passports will stay in their pocket.

“They will walk from the plane out to the kerb-side and depart the airport.”

The minister has launched a wideranging overhaul of the visa system which could involve a company designing, installing and operating technology which monitors the annual traffic of 8.5 million visa applications.

The contract could be worth billions and Mr Dutton said he would not bar a Chinese company from managing the sensitive security and personal information.

“We will go through the normal procurement processes and we don’t discriminate against Chinese companies,” he told the NPC.

“We wouldn’t rule against an American company. We’d look at the bona fides of the person, the collaboration, the consortium who has come together to put the bid and we would work through their proposal.”

Mr Dutton said the overhaul and the takeover of technology was needed because the flow of visa applications was too great for human handling.

He said much of the strain was coming from the double-digit growth of visa applications from the lucrative Chinese and Indian markets, including tourist and student applications.

“I don’t have the staff, and never will, to provide the scrutiny that’s required that we can now deliver through technology,” said Mr Dutton.

“The question for us is how we can deliver that at lowest cost in a way that provides greater assurances around protections?”

The same technology will be used to process freight which is a growing sector because of online shopping from overseas sources.

“We’re probably maybe a generation, a technology generation, off it, so a couple of years,” he said. “It’s very close indeed.”