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”.
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