By Nick Heath, 3 July 2008 11:24
NEWS
Biometric technology is to be used to speed up travel between the UK and the US.
Fingerprint, iris and facial recognition technology will be used to speed up frequent travellers' journeys through immigration control, as part of a UK-US agreement for a fast-travel option for trusted travellers going between the countries.
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The agreement is aimed at boosting business travel. Liam Byrne, border and immigration minister, revealed the agreement to city representatives on Wednesday.
The government said the deal will build on the success of the Iris scheme (Iris recognition immigration system) for trusted travellers, which enables registered passengers to enter the UK without queuing, following an eye scan.
More than 200,000 people have already enrolled in the scheme and it has been used more than one million times since its launch in March 2006.
Iris enrolment stations and gates are available at all five Heathrow terminals and at Birmingham, Gatwick and Manchester airports.
Byrne said in a statement: "Speedy travel between the UK and the US is crucial to large financial organisations."
Comments
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1. anonymous
Duh! How flawed can an idea be??? Firstly anyone who has watched the UK iris scheme work will know it is slow and unreliable. It is sometimes "faster" when there is a huge queue for normal processes, BUT the time/person is a great deal longer than the human alternative. I've seen occasions when the 5-6 people trying to use IRIS took longer than I did in the normal queue.
Secondly the "trusted" idea is bullshit! So, one of Osama's pals who is being covertly observed applies for the scheme. Is he/she rejected because of this - and so alerted to the fact that he/she is regarded as suspicious? Are our security services really that stupid? I think not! (Well, I hope not!)
In reality he/she will be registered, thus providing convenient automated tracking of entry and exit.
Ok, ok, we can get into a debate about all sorts of permutations of this, but the bottom line is - it does nothing for "security" and will certainly not be any faster if significant numbers use it.
Yet another case of solution looking for problem! Face it - life contains risk and it is impossible to eliminate all, possibly most, of it.
2. anonymous
Good to see Britain keeping up with the technology. Wait a minute... The Dutch have been using this and calling it Privium since 2001?
3. J. Anderson
Dont belive a word of it. I read at Biometric Freedom that the Iris scanning at Heathrow is taking 3 times longer than conventional passports. I went through Gatwick the other day and from 4 flights not a single person wanted to use the biometric entry gates. As for finger printing, thats just sick.
See http://www.biometricfreedom.com/web/failure.html