Apparently it has been tested, has been shown to have statistically significant result. As of November 2018 it was not used nor planned to be used on enforcing any border control, but was tested at three borders in real conditions.
Even a good system would have false positives. In itself, that does not invalidate the whole system, even if I think the whole premise of this project is very shaky.
Being statistically significant is nowhere near a high enough bar for this sort of quackery. Statistical significance is gameable, doesn't carry information about type I and II errors and frankly just means there is at least 1 common case that the machine gets right.
People shouldn't be given or denied opportunity because a magic machine likes them. This machine will be like a human - it will develop a bizarre set of biases and one of them will happen to be correlated with reality. It could be producing about as much evidence as someone guessing that Arabs are Muslim - grossly stupid, statistically significant results.
Honestly at 4.5m that's a marginal project that is unlikely to be used anywhere seriously. And the EU answers makes it clear it will never take decisions alone.
You know, there has been a bit weird push by brexit promoters for "frictionless" borders relying on magic tech. I suspect the funding of this could come from there.
Expect it to not go anywhere once the brexit mess is over
People shouldn't be given or denied opportunity because a magic machine likes them. This machine will be like a human - it will develop a bizarre set of biases and one of them will happen to be correlated with reality. It could be producing about as much evidence as someone guessing that Arabs are Muslim - grossly stupid, statistically significant results.