corporate-wage-slave

Yes, the booth images appear first, and are switched to the front camera above the patten, where you're invited to stare at that white box. Then the other images appear after the passport has been scanned, and the data linked. I think the officer only deals with facial recognition towards the end of the process (so after the data validation), but there are several gates being controlled simultaneously by one officer.

flyingbee

Last time I arrived at T5 I had kids with me so had to use the EU family queue. It took ages due to a large number of passengers in front of us travelling on Italian or French identity cards who weren't able to use the e-gates.

They didn't proactively invite passengers travelling with infants to the front of the queue which I have seen at other airports.

origin

I think they were really starting to raise the issue as the full changes from leaving the EU arent fully known as of yet.

BAGoldBoy

Not my experience. LHR immigration is a shambles. Came back from DUB in July and it was 45 minutes from arriving at e-gate queue to passing through immigration. Some of that was stupid people who ignored the instructions to remove glasses, etc. Many of the US airports such as LAX, SFO, BOS, SEA to name a few that I have been through recently have been a breeze.

Takiteasy

Nothing appears on the officer's screen until the passport has been presented. At this point you are queued for a fraction of a second while they deal with another gate and your other data is retrieved.

Assuming all all other checks are green, the officer sees your booth picture, your passport picture and the database picture.

There is one upside in non-biometric face recognition - I don't bother removing my glasses nor my headphones anymore 😊

barnet

I thought you don't go through immigration after a flight from Dublin.

anc305

IMHO , the best system ever worldwide was the UK IRIS. Been to 70+ countries and have entered the UK 200+ times. That's with a US passport.

madfish

I assumed he meant a flight into DUB showing a different experience to mine.

On the other hand we waited over an houtvatvBOS last month and only that shirt because we eventually jumped the queue as we had an infant with us.

leaveamessage

Agree.
Was so quick and worked every single time, without ever having to interact with a surly UK border person.

:D!

I get rejected by the UK gates if I leave my glasses on. My thinking is that it's harder for the officers to positively match a digital image quickly when one has glasses and one doesn't. But I've been asked to remove my glasses at the staffed desks too.

Interestingly I am wearing glasses in my Australian passport photo, but the Smartgate doesn't work unless I take them off.

scubaccr

A lot of the e-Gate queue length (50% or more at times) is self inflicted by the passenger/users of egates.

Frequently the roped meandering queue is headed by someone who stops at head of queue waiting for an empty egate... wjich then self perpetuates. Passengers are meant to move off roped queue and line up 3-4 deep behind each active egate.

Then there are those passengers that get inside an egate, and only then look in all their pockets for passport wasting more time. I have my passport opened/ready to slide onto glass as soon as inside an e-gate

binman

Absolutely. This is an organisation not fit for purpose and lacking any customer service skill or interest. The response that they make no apology for carrying out important work is risible. When I, as a British Citizen can now enter the US (without global entry) faster than I can returning home is simply unacceptable.

The machines fail fail more often than the work and the attitude of the staff,management and government is outrageous.

Back in April I had an incident when my 13 year old son was separated from the family when his passport failed to clear the machine. I had been behind him but it was mayhem and as my wife and daughter had both got through the same machine I allowed my self to be redirected. I passed only to see him being ushered into the now enormous queue of other failed passports.

i was waiting against the wall at the very rear of the hall when the officer stood up and announced that unless I moved he would stop work. I tried to explain that I was trying to keep my son in view but he was having none of it. I left as he was threatening and went to locate a supervisor. When I found someone I was told that if my son was old enough to use a machine he was old enough to queue alone.

They don't have a clue, they have no concept of safeguarding at any level ( I complained through all the formal channels). Their manner is aggressive and unpleasant and I am afraid that they represent the ever increasingly prevalent daily mail and daily express culture of closed minds and closed borders. It's nasty but it is Britain today!

IAN-UK

Clearly technology is employed, and there is an element of automation.

But it's not simply a matter of facial recognition, which is inevitably the focus of public attention.

The data encoded on the chip in the passport are sifted through databases. This audit returns information to the control booth which allows the agent to intervene if something jars, otherwise if Mr/Ms Agent is happy with the congruity of photos from booth and chip the gate opens.

So agents are pulling levers to deny entry rather mechanically intervening to allow entry. The joy of the system is that the agent is much more efficiently employed. Not only can a single BF agent monitor a number of gates, the faff of getting into the booth and positioning your passport takes up your time, but the equivalent at immigration wastes both your time and that of the BF agent.

Worcester

I thought EU citizens (apart from the Irish) had to have a passport and ID cards without passport would be sent back (with a big fine to the airline)?

corporate-wage-slave

Gibraltar, Sovereign Bases, EEA and Swiss can travel on ID cards. Some EU ID cards are not machine readable (Greece and Italy) so take extra long to process.