The watchdog for the UK Border Agency says that facial recognition checks at Manchester Airport are being undermined by unreliable IT.
The independent chief inspector of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) found that during one week between 18 and 24 April 2010, the gates at Manchester airport's Terminal 1 broke down five times.
Four were due to technical faults and one because of a lack of staff. Of the technical faults, one on 23 April resulted in a passenger getting trapped in a gate. All gates were subsequently closed and the fault was not rectified until 27 April.
UKBA managers told the inspector they had a maintenance contract with a company based in Portugal to support facial recognition gates. The contract, which covered both Manchester and other airports, was monitored by the Home Office IT unit.
Under the agreement, the gates would be fixed within four working days, but if a gate broke down on a Friday, it could be out of order until the following Thursday.
In the opinion of the inspector, this contractual time frame is too long.
"If the latest technology regularly fails, staff and passengers will lose faith in its effectiveness," the chief inspector says in a report. "The effectiveness of the facial recognition gates is in danger of being compromised both by the unreliability of the technology and the frustration of staff towards their use."
Furthermore, the inspector found no overall plan to evaluate facial recognition gates at Manchester airport and has urged UKBA to do so soon as possible.
Ten facial recognition gates were installed at terminals one and two at Manchester airport in 2008 and 2009, to check UK or EU passengers aged 18 or over who have an electronically chipped passport.
The gates work by scanning the passenger's face using a camera and matching this to the image stored on the passport. If there is a match, the gates open and the passenger is allowed through, removing the need to speak to an immigration officer.
The document says that when the gates were working, they delivered benefits to passengers, reducing the time taken to go through passport control, increasing border security and allowing the UKBA to make better use of its staff.
Between November 2009 and April 2010 when the inspection was carried out, the highest uptake of the gates was at terminal one in December 2009 when they checked 48 percent or 9,492 of eligible passengers. The lowest number of checks was in February 2010, when they checked four percent of eligible passengers in Terminal 1, while the gates in the second terminal were shut.
"Increasingly, the UK Border Agency relies upon technology, such as facial recognition gates, to increase security and make better use of its staff. During this inspection, I found that this new technology was not operational for a significant period of time. As a result, I recommend that the UK Border Agency gives priority to evaluating the actual benefits intended by such technology," John Vine, the independent chief inspector, says in a forward to the document.
Manchester, the largest UK airport outside the south-east, handles more than 20 million passengers each year, with about 85 percent taking international flights.
Talkback
This post has been removed by a moderator.
This post has been removed by a moderator.
Security at Airports has become a paramount necessity as I am sure we all are in agreement with and grateful for the peace of mind it gives us. However, does it necessitate the sheer arrogance displayed by many of the staff carrying out checks on the person and their hand luggage ?
Having flown from Manchester to Southampton in November this year I became increasingly dismayed at the procedures and cattle market mind set that staff appeared to have adopted .particularly at Manchester.
The level of rudeness and arrogance displayed to paying Customers both young and old is unacceptable . Having taken off a pair of boots, bangles, belt and the like I still set off an alarm and was subjected to a frisk search . Not a pleasant experience.
Picking up the tray from the x-ray machine and trying to get dressed which for an asthmatic in such an environment was quiet an ordeal. I was told, not asked by a rude middle aged woman to take the tray back to the place from where it came. I felt as the next process was to get an identification mark on my arm and attend the cleansing purification area.
Having worked in the Criminal Justice System for many years which involved visiting many high risk HMP’s establishments where security is again a necessity, I have never been subjected to the in-dignifying, rude and disrespectful experience I received at Manchester Airport . Fortunately the Prison staff I have been in contact with have treated me and my colleagues with the utmost respect . Perhaps there is a need for some serious customer service training or a new recruitment drive to ensure that staff dealing with people actually like people.
Security at airport is a very serious issue. Airports should chose the best system not the cheapest system. ' If you pay panuts you get monkey work'.... Why to chose a company from Portugal?, yes we live in a free economy zone, end everyone deserves a chance, but why not to chose a UK company which gives service within 8 hours?..... I notices that many systems which are monitored by the Home Office IT unit, should meet a certain price creteria, and if you are matching the price you get the contract. They issue a tender with a budget limit and they have for each subject points, so in this vase it won't be possible for the best system to win the tender. The cheapest one wins, and on the long term it costs much more than the most expensive one. This is how they are 'playing' with our tax money.
This is not going to change in the near future unless somebody wakes up and say something.