Computers to scan passports at Heathrow

From this summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers8217; faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports, the newspaper said.

British border security officials reportedly believe that the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud.

The report said 8220;But there is concern that passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automated gate. 8220;To ensure no one on a police watch list is incorrectly let through, the technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of 8220;false negatives8221; 8211; innocent passengers rejected because the machines cannot match their appearance to the records8221;.

Such passengers may be redirected into conventional passport queues, or officers may be authorised to override automatic gates following additional checks.

Gary Murphy, head of operational design and development for the UK Border Agency, told a conference in London this week 8220;We think a machine can do a better job than manned passport inspections. What will the public reaction be? Will they use it? We need to test and see how people react and how they deal with rejection. We hope to get the trial up and running by the summer8221;.

Phil Booth of the No2Id Campaign no to identity cards said 8220;Someone is extremely optimistic. The technology is just not there. The last time I spoke to anyone in the facial recognition field they said the best systems were only operating at about a 40 per cent success rate in a real time situation8221;.

He told the paper 8220;I am flabbergasted they consider doing this at a time when there are so many measures making it difficult for passengers.8221;

Gus Hosein, a specialist at the London School of Economics in the interplay between technology and society, said 8220;It8217;s a laughable technology8230;It8217;s not that it the computer could wrongly match someone as a terrorist, but that it won8217;t match them with their image.

A human can make assumptions, a computer can8217;t.8221; So far around 8 million to 10 million UK biometric passports, containing a computer chip holding the carrier8217;s facial details, have been issued since they were introduced in 2006. The last non-biometric passports will cease to be valid after 2016.

Home Office minister Liam Byrne said 8220;Britain8217;s border security is now among the toughest in the world and tougher checks do take time, but we don8217;t want long waits.8221;

8220;So the UK Border Agency will soon be testing new automatic gates for British and European Economic Area EEA citizens. We will test them this year and if they work put them at all key ports and airports.8221;