Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stands at the intersection of national security and customer experience, balancing its law enforcement mission with a commitment to serve travelers and trade partners efficiently.

James McCament, CBP’s chief digital transformation officer, says the agency doesn’t see those priorities as being in conflict. Instead, they reinforce each other.

“We’re the nation’s largest law enforcement agency. We’re also the largest trade agency,” McCament said. “We are always looking at it not as a choice between national security and customer service, but together. You have to link national security and facilitation of lawful trade and travel.”

On any given day, about 1.2 million people come through CBP’s 328 ports of entry.

“We have, every day, billions of dollars in goods coming into the port. And CBP is evaluating that,” McCament said. “So we’re dealing with an enormous amount of customers, an enormous amount of data, and at the core is guaranteeing the secure facilitation of lawful trade and travel.”

Technology plays a central role in managing that volume of work, including expedited clearance of travelers coming into the United States through CBP’s Global Entry program.

“When we have a secure system — secure identification, secure processes —that’s actually going to facilitate the speed of providing the service,” McCament said. “Technology is allowing us to integrate that national security and customer service facilitation together.”

CBP has a long history of innovation. Congress created the agency’s predecessor, the Customs Services, in 1789, but McCament said, “We’ve always been looking for technology to force-multiply our mission.”

“We also have an enormous mission that always outsizes what we can provide through our people and our personnel. So we’re always looking for ways to close that gap, to speed up time, return time to mission for our people,” he said.

Artificial intelligence is now a major part of CBP’s modernization toolkit. McCament said the agency has been using AI for more than a decade, along the border in automated surveillance towers and as non-intrusive inspection technology at ports of entry.

AI, biometrics driving CX improvements

AI, he added, helps CBP officers make more informed decisions more quickly.

“It translates to mission through anomaly detection, data integration, and being able to put context to the data and to return that back to our officers and agents, so they have more integrated data to make their decisions,” McCament said. “Our humans, our officers and agents, are in the center of the decision-making loop. They will never leave that loop.”

The demand for CBP services has surged in recent years. Since the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency in May 2023, passenger travel volume has increased by 34%, while the agency’s workforce, during that same period, has grown by 8%. McCament said AI helps CBP’s workforce of about 65,000 employees keep up with a growing workload.

“It really gives us a great, exciting tool to give them time back to the mission. Time back to mission means the mission they’re uniquely suited and trained to do. So their job satisfaction should go up. Job satisfaction is important. It’s about retention too,” he said. “We want our officers and agents to be on the front line for many years and feel totally equipped and trained to do so.”

CBP in 2023 rolled out its Vessel Entrance and Clearance System (VECS), a digitized process that automated many parts of a previously paper-based process. McCament said VECS reduced human error on paperwork and saved about 300,000 work hours for employees.

“It also returned time back to mission. It also ensures that they’re satisfied with the work that they’re doing in a much different environment,” he added.

Other innovations at CBP come directly from employee feedback. McCament said about 1,400 CBP employees participate in a grassroots network of agency innovators.

“Watching our people use the systems and tools they have available to find their solutions and deliver them back to mission is exciting, and we’re looking to champion even more of that while knowing that they’re doing so with the highest attention to national security,” he said.

Biometric technology is also helping CBP speed up screening for travelers, while enhancing security. McCament said that since 2018, the agency has processed over 700 million travelers using biometric information — and identified 446,000 overstays and 2,000 imposters.

CBP is also looking to expand its facial recognition and biometric capture capabilities abroad, at foreign departure gates for travel to the United States. McCament said this technology enables seamless security screenings for international travelers.

“That is great for the traveler and for our officers and agents,” McCament said. “They are able to actually have a much better experience conducting their job, in a more efficient and effective way that maximizes national security and efficiency.”

How Zoom supports CBP’s mission

Matt Mandrgoc, the head of U.S. public sector at Zoom, said CBP uses Zoom for Government to facilitate Global Entry interviews.

“They’re able to use Zoom for Government to submit your information digitally, and then be able to have a remote meeting, to be able to get your Global Entry, save people time from having to come in,” he said.

Zoom also supports CBP’s ROAM app, which allows pleasure boaters to report their entry into the U.S.

“Visitors submit their documentation through CBP’s ROAM app, and once it’s processed, they receive a notification when the CBP officer is available to conduct their video interview. This integration provides a simple, reliable, high-quality video needed for these critical verification processes,” Mandrgoc said.

Supporting the federal workforce’s return to office

Federal agencies are reimagining their workplaces, as they return to offices.

Matt Mandrgoc, the head of U.S. public sector at Zoom, says agencies face several challenges adapting their IT infrastructure to support a more in-person workplace.

“People had gone to a hybrid environment, and now, as we’re moving back to the office, a lot of flexibility is not there. There’s costs associated with having to move people back,” Mandrgoc said. “These non-cloud legacy systems aren’t going to have the flexibility to really have the opportunity to go into not just a return to work, but also support hybrid solutions.”

But these same challenges can fuel innovation.

“You’re really making the move to the cloud so you can maximize cost savings and flexibility to this change,” Mandrgoc said. “An agency says we’re moving from 12 locations, down to five. Here, you can basically pick up a headset, your computer, move to new locations, set up, and you’re ready to go.”

Agencies are navigating a return-to-office mandate at the same time that the federal government is shrinking office space. Workspace reservation tools are helping employees stay productive amid these changes.

“You can reserve a desk, you can reserve a conference room for your team meetings. You can set things up around those offices that you’re going to work out of. That provides maximum flexibility with minimal disruption to the workflow and productivity,” Mandrgoc said.

Successfully navigating the return to office is important because employee experience drives customer experience.

“Simplicity brings a lot of whole lot of acceleration to productivity,” Mandrgoc said. “As you’re making these moves and bringing people back, you want to make sure that they accelerate the productivity and what they’re able to do their jobs, get things done, be able to do what they have to do, and be able to perform the customer experience for their constituents.”

Artificial intelligence is also making an impact.

“Sitting in a meeting, you’re taking notes, you’re taking action items. One person may have the notes, but maybe not everyone gets them. You can use AI for taking meeting notes,” Mandrgoc said. “People are using AI in different capacities.”