Posted on April 25, 2008 by Fiona Hilliard

Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology at UK airports this summer under new improved security measures. 

Computer operated clearance gates will be introduced to scan passenger’s faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports.

Border security officials believe the machines are a more reliable way of screening passports and preventing identity fraud.  The scheme will be open to UK and EU citizens who hold new biometric passports.
Concern is already mounting into whether passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automatic gate.  For added security, the technology will generate a number of ‘false negatives’-innocent passengers may be rejected because the machines cannot match their appearance to the records.
Plans are already afoot to redirect certain passengers to regular passport queues or officers may be authorised to automatic gates following additional checks.
Around 8m to 10m UK biometric passports have been introduced since 1996, containing a computer chip holding the carrier’s facial details have been issued since they were introduced in 2006.  Non-biometric passports will not be valid after 2016.