Britons will no longer need to show their passports when flying back into UK airports, thanks to facial recognition technology at e-gates. New "contactless borders" are set to reduce queues when introduced at Birmingham and East Midlands airports.
Upgrade to all e-gates by early next year
All e-gates, which operate at Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow, London City, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle and Stansted airports, will have the upgraded system by early next year.
Returning passengers who use the e-gates and have their face captured on camera will not have to scan their passport. Passengers must travel with their passport because it will be needed to check in and to board the plane.
Faster and more secure border control
Phil Douglas, the director general of Border Force, said: "It will mean we have a more secure border and a much faster transit through the airport. It's quicker, it's more modern, it's more secure."
The new system, to be introduced in the coming weeks, will work only for British passport holders at first. But the longer term aim is to extend it to other nationalities allowed to use e-gates. They currently include those with biometric passports from Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the US.
How the technology works
Douglas told the Sunday Times that contactless gates could speed up border control by up to 25 per cent. The existing process typically takes 20-25 seconds. But it can take longer because of problems such as failing to place their passports correctly in the machine, or the chip on their passport being dirty and therefore unreadable.
Under the new system, each airline will transmit a gallery of arriving British passengers' passport photos to border control at each airport, which will then be collated for the e-gates to reference. Douglas added: "We know who's coming and can load up that gallery of who is arriving, it's not a one in 60 million check, it's a one in tens of thousands check."
If the passenger's face is not recognised by the e-gate they will be asked to scan their passport. If that fails, they will be directed to a Border Force officer at a manned desk. The technology had a successful three-week trial at Manchester airport last October. The Home Office said passengers typically passed through the gates faster and had a better experience.
