The Border General Force
Director, Sir Charles Montgomery officially opened fifteen electronic passport
gates at Heathrow's Terminal 5 on Wednesday 21 October 2015.
The electronic passport gates
named eGates which is the most state-of-the-art version of gates ever to be
used in the UK are expected to process around 400,000 passengers at the
Terminal each month.
According to the new released
by the Home Office: “The eGates can be used by any UK or European Economic Area
(EEA) passenger aged 18 or over, with a ‘chipped’ passport, and use advanced
facial recognition technology to compare the passenger’s face to the digital
image recorded in their passport.
Border Force officers monitor
the system and any travellers rejected by the gates are directed to the staffed
clearance desks to be seen by an officer.
Automated technology such as
eGates, give Border Force the ability to process a higher number of low risk
passengers more quickly and using less resource. This reduces queue times as
well as freeing Border Force Officers up to focus on other priority work such
as cracking down on the smuggling of dangerous goods and identifying potential
victims of trafficking.
Sir Charles Montgomery,
Director General of Border Force, said:
Increasing the use of digital
technology at the border is part of Border Force’s commitment to improve the
passenger experience.
We must protect our borders,
but we also want to encourage travellers to the UK - people who boost our
economy through tourism and through business.
This means ensuring their
arrival in the UK is dealt with as swiftly and efficiently as possible while
maintaining the integrity and security of the UK.
eGates not only benefit
British and EEA travellers. Nationals from the USA, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and Japan who have successfully been accepted onto the Registered
Traveller programme can now also use them.
Registered Traveller allows
regular travellers fast-tracked entry into the UK. For a small fee, applicants
undergo security checks in advance of travel meaning that, on arrival to the
UK, they are able to use the EEA queues and eGates upon their arrival, bypassing
queues for non-EEA passengers”.
