Speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary delegated legislation committee in February 2010, the immigration minister, Phil Woolas, said:

"The draft order will facilitate the entry of automated gate users into the United Kingdom by amending the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) Order 2000. Automated gates, which are already in use at some UK airports, speed up the passage through the border of legitimate travellers by allowing permitted passengers lawfully to enter the UK without having to queue up at the manual immigration control.

"The gates work by verifying a person’s identity and making checks against our Home Office systems to ensure that they are eligible to use the gate and enter the country. If the person is eligible, the gates open and allow the person to come in. If not, the gates remain closed and the person is required to seek entry at the manual immigration control. I emphasise that use of the gates is entirely voluntary. They have two main benefits: they allow eligible users to enter the UK quickly and efficiently and reduce the number of low-risk passengers queuing up at the manual immigration control, allowing our UK Border Agency officials to focus staff resources on the higher-risk passengers at the primary checkpoint.

"There are currently two automated gate schemes in operation. The first is called the e-passport gate and can be used only by European economic area nationals who hold a second generation biometric passport. The gates, which do not require any pre-enrolment by users, are being trialled in 10 UK airport terminals. To date, more than 1 million of the crossings of the UK border have been made using that method.

"The second scheme is IRIS—the iris recognition immigration system—and is available to all traveller categories. A person wishing to use IRIS must go through an enrolment process that includes a face-to-face interview with a UKBA officer. If the person is considered suitable, their biometrics are taken and securely stored. IRIS is also installed in 10 UK airport terminals. More than 350,000 passengers have enrolled on to the IRIS scheme since January 2006, and collectively they have used IRIS gates 2.7 million times—they are the frequent travellers. Hon. Members may be familiar with the gates if they have signed up to IRIS; I certainly find them convenient.

"Future automated gate schemes are being developed with the British Airports Authority. We will roll out a new pre-enrolment automated gate scheme, the automated clearance system plus, at Heathrow airport; it is due to go live this year. Like IRIS, nationals of all countries can apply to enrol on to ACS plus. Again, as with IRIS, UKBA officers will interview every applicant to assess a person’s suitability. If someone is approved, their fingerprints and an image of their face will be taken and securely stored before they are able to use the scheme’s gates. I ought to explain that the 'image of the face', which to the layperson might be a photograph, is, in fact, a geometric map of a person’s face which enables us to secure identity.

"The order is necessary because the current method of granting leave to enter to non-visa nationals who use automatic gates is inefficient and out of date. Non-visa national Irish users are currently granted leave via a paper notice printed by the gates. When the gates’ printers break down, which they do on occasion, or run out of paper, the whole gate system is shut down and cannot be used by any passengers. Users also regularly forget to take their written notice from the gate, which then retracts the printout for security reasons, again taking the gates out of operation.

"The order provides a better and more efficient method of granting leave to non-visa national gate users. The order allows the UKBA officers to authorise a person as someone who may obtain leave by using the automated gates following satisfactory screening. Thereafter, each time the person uses the gates to enter the UK, he or she will automatically be granted leave to enter for six months, on the same basis as leave granted at the manual immigration control to non-visa nationals who seek to enter as a visitor. In both cases, recourse to public funds and employment is prohibited. The only difference is that gate users will not receive written evidence of their leave when they use the gate.

"In practice, the order needs to apply only to non-visa nationals, as other types of traveller do not require leave to be granted when they seek entry to the UK. British citizens and EEA nationals do not require leave to enter the UK, visa nationals are granted leave in the form of a visa before they arrive in the UK, and foreign nationals who are settled in the UK already have limited or indefinite leave to remain in the country. I trust that hon. Members will join me in supporting such pragmatic, sensible measures."

However, he is not strictly correct when he says that the IRIS scheme "is available to all traveller categories", since there are criteria that travellers must fulfil before they are eligible to enrol in the scheme. What he means, it seems, is that there is no stricture as to nationality.

I am also not sure what he means by "non-visa national Irish users [being] currently granted leave via a paper notice printed by the gates" — what's the Irish bit here?

Anyway, it sounds as if the government is not planning to do away with automated entry to the UK for certain travellers, even if the IRIS technology is not the method used in the long term.

ETA: I've realised that "non-visa national Irish users" is of course simply a mis-transcription of "non-visa national IRIS users".