Originally Posted by ant_west

As I found out yesterday evening at T3 this may no longer be true - I'm a UK citizen, use IRIS regularly having enrolled some time ago (before Terminal 5 opened) and have lots of time left to run on the registered passport. Last night the IRIS machine recognised me but spat out a little note that said:

"Your iris pattern has been recognised but your permission to use the automated barrier is currently not valid. This may be because your permission to use IRIS has expired or because you have not used an automated barrier for two years or for another reason.

Please leave the IRIS barrier area and follow the signs, according to your nationality, to the appropriate area of the normal immigration control.

At the immigration control you should present yourself and your travel document to an immigration officer."

Under that it gave my enrollee number along with my name, nationality and gave an "Expiry Date" of 11/5/2013 (I last used the IRIS machine at T5 on 12/5/2011 so this would be 2 years after that point).

The machine then spat me out and I had to do the walk of shame to the main queue. Spoke to the immigration officer there and he said that he wasn't sure what had happened but he said that as they were getting rid of the IRIS machines not to worry about it and they may not be renewing registrations - he said the machines in T3 will be gone "before the summer". He did say the IRIS registration office in T3 had closed already and wasn't sure when the other terminals would close their offices but it would be soon as staff can be better used elsewhere.