Originally Posted by
Deltus
Maybe I'm being slow here, but I still don't understand how taking a photograph helps. In the above example, if the passenger entered T5 departures using their LHR-AMS boarding pass, then their LHR-MAN ticket would miss conformance and they'd be denied boarding. Is the idea that if they somehow make it onto the MAN flight, they can email the photo to someone in Manchester to apprehend him as he steps off the plane?
You are looking at this the wrong way around. The biometrics (it's not just a photo) check that whoever gets on a domestic or Irish flight did so either by coming from landside, and therefore already in the UK, or through the UK Border at Flight Connections. This is in the context that T5 has a mix of travellers airside. No biometric means they could only have connected airside by bypassing the Border. Or they swapped boarding passes, as ostensibly happened to the OP here, though in his case accidentally - some people try this with illegal intent. In both cases they should not be allowed to continue their journey without either the clearance of the Chief Immigration Officer or delegate, or can completely prove they really did enter from the UK and the technology failed on them. The last point (technical failure) can be delegated to supervisory HAL staff, the first point cannot be delegated beyond the Border Force.