Holidaymakers could avoid passport queues (Image: Getty)
British families returning from holiday could skip passport queues under new plans to use facial recognition technology at ports. Powerful cameras will match peoples’ faces with their passport pictures and car details logged in Government databases.
This would mean people arriving in the UK at ports would not have to get out of their cars and would drive through “contactless corridors”. The technology, which has been on trial since November at four ports, could cut the queues that build up during holiday periods.
Yvette Cooper is being urged to tighten up Britain’s borders (Image: Getty)
One source who has seen the technology in operation said: “At the moment you have to stop and hand your passports through the window of your car to the Border Force officer who puts them through a reader then gives them back to you.
“Under the new system, instead of getting your passports out you look at the camera. They have these really high-powered cameras that can look through the windscreen and take a picture of your face and match it to the face on the database.
“Assuming all is well, then you get the green light and you drive through the border. The other option is that you wind down your window and you all look at an iPad. The aim is to use the technology on maritime and rail routes then on air routes.”
Former Border Force chief Tony Smith told the Daily Express the Home Office should consider introducing a “biometric entry / exit system” to give officials a better understanding of who is in the UK.
He said: “People could be photographed when they enter the country and again when they leave, and we would know exactly how many people are coming and going rather tan relying upon unreliable ONS data like we do now.”
Mr Smith said that the Channel migrant crisis and people exploiting “weaknesses in our visa system” to “dupe” officials into letting them into the UK should be triggering more alarm bells in Whitehall.
Almost 40,000 of the asylum claims were linked to small boat arrivals, prompting fears many of them are arriving by other routes only to then submit a claim for protection.
Discussing how the scheme could be extended to enhance border security, Mr Smith said: “All visa applicants are fingerprinted at the point of application, as are asylum seekers.
“We can even access the original visa application and get a copy of the passport. Then if posts abroad are issuing visas to migrants who are pretending to be visitors, students or workers when their true intention is to come to claim asylum and live here, we can do something about it.”
iProov, a specialist biometric security company participating in the trials, said its facial comparison technology was designed to identify travellers within their vehicles and link the confirmed passenger ID with the vehicle in which they are travelling.
Andrew Bud, its founder and chief executive, said: “By bringing the latest identity verification technology to this critical domain, we aim to create a streamlined and efficient experience for all passengers that doesn’t compromise on speed or accuracy, and they never have to leave their vehicles.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “We use a wide range of techniques and technology to protect our border security, but we do not comment on trials of specific equipment.”