Iris scanners are being phased out at UK airports as the Border Agency considers new technology measures.
IRIS, which stands for Iris Recognition Immigration System, has already been removed from Birmingham and Manchester Airports but is still in effect at Gatwick and Heathrow and, according to the Border Agency website, will remain there until after the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
A statement from the UK Border Agency says:
“We continue to introduce new technology to protect the border while making legitimate travel easier. Electronic passport gates now operate at 15 of the country’s busiest airport terminals and are available to millions of biometric passport holders. We are phasing out iris and will be replacing it with other types of gates that non-EU passengers will be able to use.”
According to a BBC report in 2006 the Iris technology cost £2.86 million and began in June 2005 at Heathrow with plans to extend it to Gatwick, Birmingham, Stansted and Manchester.
NB: Image courtesy of Shutterstock
Oh my god, what a disaster! The one piece of (semi) reliable digital immigration technology we had in the UK is biting the dust.
IRIS scanning RIP, you will be sorely missed.
Sad news. I’ve been using IRIS since it became available at LHR (and LGW) and have found it to be flawless. And instant. If it takes 30 seconds to get clearance once inside the booth, I would be exaggerating.
And the great thing is, it works with all kinds of passports and doesn’t require the most updated, electronic ones as it doesn’t read the passport at all. That detail was covered in the registration process. It reads the iris. My experience with fingerprints and palm prints is that they are much more problematic.
My fear is that they will phase them out before implementing a replacement available to non-EU holders. Especially bothersome now that they’ve phased out special queues for long-term visa holders as well.
We shall see.