Dublin Port Trials and Demo Workshops: Day One of the BORDERLINK Mid-Term Event

On Tuesday 1 September 2026, the BORDERLINK consortium opened the first full day of its Mid-Term Demonstrations and Assessments at The Spencer Hotel in Dublin.

Around fifty people filled the main room, and among them were more than twenty customs representatives from across Europe who had accepted our invitation to come and see the project's innovations in person.  

A morning of first looks

After a short opening session and partner introductions, the day began with a preview of the two innovations that would be shown in the field that afternoon: Standard Test Units and Cigarette Recycling Machine.

The session then turned to the Federated Database for Sharing X-ray Images, arguably the innovation that raises the hardest questions, since it depends on the willingness of customs administrations to share operational images across borders. Concerns about data security and confidentiality were alleviated to some extent by the federated design of the image-sharing arrangement, under which images would remain on the home servers of the administrations that own them.

In-class demonstrations of three innovations

Before lunch the group split into three parallel sessions, each repeated three times so that every participant saw all three:

• Cloud Library for Reference RAMAN Spectra, in the first small room, showing how a shared molecular fingerprint database lets handheld RAMAN devices identify substances on the spot. The demo showed what changes when that library moved to a shared cloud: a customs officer checking a suspicious powder or liquid at the border gets an answer on the spot, and new reference spectra added by one administration become available to the others rather than staying in a single device or a single laboratory.

• Certified X-ray Operator Training, in the second small room. BORDERLINK partner INTA brought several laptops so that participants could work through the e-learning platform themselves: the actual exercises. Several customs officers went straight to the image-analysis tasks. Tey worked through the exercises the way they would in an operational setting and commented as they went on what was realistic, what was too easy, and what kinds of images they would want to see added.

• The Library of Synthetic X-ray Images was demonstrated in the main room and attracted considerable interest from customs participants. They were able to experiment with X-ray images by inserting digitally simulated threats into difficult-to-detect locations. The feedback indicated strong interest in using such synthetic images for the training of customs X-ray operators.

The afternoon: Dublin Port

Two buses took the group to Dublin Port, one of Ireland’s main gateways for imports and exports. Our hosts walked us through their mobile high-energy X-ray screening unit and, and how the decision to open a container and goods inside actually gets made. Several officers shared accounts of past smuggling cases and how they were discovered, which did more to explain the operational reality than any presentation could.

The Standard Test Units were presented in full: staged smuggling scenarios built into a 20-foot shipping container, with alcohol concealed inside wooden blocks and within the structures of a car. These concealment methods are the kind of patterns that officers benefit from seeing in X-ray images during training, so they are better able to recognise them later in operational settings on duty.

We also visited a warehouse where seized goods are stored while they wait to be dealt with. There the Rezero cigarette recycling machine ran a live experiment, taking filter material from seized cigarettes, to be later turned into usable goods like buttons and sunglasses frames. The sheer volume of material in the warehouse highlighted the importance of finding environmentally responsible ways to manage and dispose of goods that customs confiscate.

Closing the day, and what we took from it

The group returned to the hotel for a plenary session in which the Joint Research Centre (JRC) presented relevant ongoing research actions, placing BORDERLINK in the wider European Customs research landscape.

The visiting customs representatives spent the day giving us exactly what we had asked for: feedback, and specific descriptions of what their own administrations need. Some of it arrived in the formal sessions, and a good deal of it arrived in the breaks.