UK immigration reports successful new airport security
November 24 2009 by Liam Clifford
New biometric security at UK airports has seen over 1million people pass through them.
Almost a
million people have now successfully used the new face recognition technology
while passing through UK immigration at the country’s airports.
Alan
Johnson, the UK Home Secretary, says the new technology was introduced to ease
the processing of people through airports while spotting higher risk travellers
and goods.
Johnson made the announcement that almost a million people
have passed through the new security systems while visiting the facial
recognition gates at Gatwick. Passengers pass through the self-service gates,
which check the biometric information against a range of lists before letting
them enter the UK. The gates are used to monitor people coming into the country
on holiday as well as those moving to the UK or coming to work in the
UK.
The gates were introduced at Gatwick in August this year and almost
50,000 passengers arriving at that airport have opted to use the gates as an
alternative to queuing at the traditionally manned passport check
gates.
Johnson took the opportunity to talk about the other measures
introduced to monitor those coming to live in the UK or coming here to visit:
“we have also introduced fingerprint visas, checking those wanting to enter the
UK against immigration and crime databases, and compulsory ID cards for foreign
nationals. In addition, the e-Borders system allows the UK Border Agency to
count people in and out of the country and target terrorist suspects, criminals
and would-be illegal immigrants before they can reach the UK.”
See the latest Immigration News
