Passport e-gates are back online across the UK after a “nationwide issue” caused severe delays in arrivals at Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, and Manchester. Passengers were confronted with similar delays at Heathrow, Manchester and Gatwick in 2023 when passport e-gates were not working.
The Home Office shared the cause was a “system network issue” but confirmed that “at no point was border security compromised, and there is no indication of malicious cyber activity.”
While the technical issue affected e-gates, the problem appeared to be with the Border Force “systems” more broadly as the BBC reported:
The problem did not appear to not just be affecting the e-gates themselves, as Belfast International Airport, which does not have them, said the Border Force “systems” had been impacted.
e-gates use facial recognition software to verify identity, scanning your face and matching it with the data stored on a biometric chip in your passport to ascertain whether you are a security risk. First introduced in UK airports in 2008 as an efficient tool to process large volumes of low-risk passengers through immigration control, there are now over 270 e-gates at 15 air and rail ports in the UK.
Technology is playing a key role as airports attempt to find a balance between efficiency and security. However, incidents like these highlight the need for solid contingency plans when that technology encounters issues. As the industry pushes on with technological innovation, crafting a more seamless experience for passengers, it is important to reinforce operational resilience and adaptability.
For more like this see:
- IROPs: Protecting passengers from the adversities of disruption with AirAsia
- Lufthansa becomes the latest in a string of tech-based failures causing travel chaos
- Who should foot the £100m bill from the ATC failure?
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