The week began with chaos at airports across the UK when, on May 7, the eGates the country uses for its own citizens and some EU members experienced a system-wide outage.
Many travelers trying to clear customs at major British airports, such as London's Heathrow and Gatwick, as well as Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh, reported massive crowds and hours-long waits with no information about when they would be able to get through. Customs officials ended up having to clear travelers manually and, as one of them described to the BBC, he ended up spending more time in customs than on his flight to London from Portugal.
Related: A country just eliminated the visa for visitors with any passport
British authorities have been implementing and expanding the eGate system with great fanfare as a way to “enable faster travel to the United Kingdom.” There are currently 270 electronic gates at airports and certain sea and rail crossings into the UK and, although they are currently only available to EU citizens and members, British customs authorities said they were working to expand these to the point that most nationalities could pass through customs without speaking. to an agent simply by presenting her passport details and being confirmed by facial recognition technology.
British customs spent a lot of time boasting about going fully digital
“We will know a lot more information about people from the beginning,” said UK Border Force director general Phil Douglas. saying At the time. “We will know if they have been to the UK before. We will know if they comply with immigration laws.”
More trips:
- A new travel term is taking over the internet (and reaching airlines and hotels)
- 10 Best Airline stocks to Buy Now
- Airlines see a new type of traveler at the front of the plane
But at least for now, the system remains prone to serious failures. The British Home Office has ruled out that the outage was caused by a hack or some other type of “malicious cyber activity”, but does not yet know what went wrong. He further said that “e-gates at UK airports came back online shortly after midnight” on May 8.
“Our teams are supporting Border Force with their contingency plans to help resolve the issue as quickly as possible and are available to provide passenger welfare,” a Heathrow airport representative said during the worst of the bottleneck. “We apologize for any impact this is having on passenger travel.”
Related: A Major Airport Is About to Eliminate Passports Completely (Even for International Travel)
There are reasons why the use of facial recognition technology in airports has its critics
While it was largely resolved within 24 hours, the failure sparked a broader discussion about the problems caused by digitalization, not only when things go wrong but also in terms of travelers' privacy. Critics often point out that even if used solely for identification, bad actors could access sensitive passport data and thus create a lifetime of problems around identity fraud.
“We can't change our biometrics without extreme measures like burning our fingerprints or undergoing extreme facial reconstruction surgery,” said Adam Schwartz, senior director of privacy litigation at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. technology-airport-security/”>recently said the Washington Post. “Unlike other numbers that can be changed if we are victims of fraud or something, we have our biometrics for life.”
That being said, most countries in general have been moving towards greater use of facial recognition technology at airports; The United States has also been testing agentless check-in for certain authorized domestic travelers.
Related: A veteran fund manager picks his favorite stocks for 2024
