Travellers are being urged to prepare for new rules that could see passports ditched at the UK border later this year. The new rule, which is due to launch on October 6, 2024, is set to see passports replaced by facial recognition technology, using eGates at most major UK airports. From this date onwards, travellers arriving in the UK will be able to use eGates to pass through border control without needing to present their passport or speak to a Border Force officer.
eGates are already being used at a number of major airports in the UK, though currently require a passenger to present their passport. However, Anton Radchenko CEO at flight compensation experts AirAdvisor has suggested this change could lead to “chaos” at passport control, due to the technology being prone to outages. He said: “eGates are notoriously prone to outages, you only need to look back to May 8 when passengers arriving at major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh were affected by huge delays due to eGates failing.
A nationwide system network issue persisted for more than four hours, with some passengers speaking of spending longer in queues at arrivals than they did on their flight. “While the new plans are designed to offer ‘frictionless’ travel, if the roll-out of the technology isn’t flawless, passengers could face chaos at UK borders when systems go down. When this technology fails, you need human border staff on hand to process passengers manually, airports.
