Security at Schiphol airport to check passports and ID cards needs an urgent overhaul to protect it from cyber attacks and other forms of sabotage.

A damning report by the Court of Audit (Algemene Rekenkamer) concluded that the border police force’s systems were ‘inadequate’ and ‘not equipped for the future’ because of their vulnerability to espionage and targeted attacks.

Criminals could infiltrate the system to intercept information about passengers such as their nationality, their destination and their travelling companions. A cyberattack could also bypass the system and allow unwanted people to enter the country.

Around 80 million passengers pass through Schiphol every year, making it one of the main entry ports to the European Union. Digital passports and electronic scanning gates are increasingly used to check passengers crossing the border, while travellers from outside the Schengen zone are screened before arrival. The electronic gates, manual passport checks and pre-arrival screening process each have their own IT system.

Two of the three systems used by border guards working for the Koninklijke Marechaussee have not been adequately checked for the risk of attacks from outside or within, creating a ‘real risk’ in an infrastructure used by 60,000 defence ministry staff, according to the Court of Audit’s report.

Another shortcoming is that the Marechaussee’s systems are not synchronised with the Security Operations Centers at the ministry of defence and Schiphol airport itself, the audit body said. That made it more difficult for external agencies to detect a cyber attack at the border.

Arno Visser, president of the Court of Audit, told NOS Radio 1 that far too few tests and inspections were carried out on the system. ‘All the basic things need to be done better,’ he said. ‘It mainly concerns the risks that you run with people coming into the country. Can you follow them properly? Will you know if unsuitable people are trying to get in?

‘If the IT systems go down, the border police force can’t do its job,’ he added.