Woman used cousin’s passport at e-border
AN airline passenger slipped through an electronic border gate using her cousin’s passport, a watchdog has revealed.
The incident will raise fears about the security of selfservice e-passport gates at airports and whether they could be targeted by terrorists, criminals and human traffickers trying to sneak into Britain.
The gates automatically scan passports and compare them with biometric features of the traveller’s face. If they do not match, the gates do not open and Border Force officers step in.
A report by David Bolt, the independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, revealed how inspectors spotted the blunder at Stansted Airport in Essex.
It said: ‘A passenger managed to gain entry via an e-passport gate using her cousin’s passport.
‘However, when the cousin tried to use the first passenger’s passport she was rejected, twice, at different gates. At this point, the first passenger returned to the gates to hand the correct passport to her cousin.’
The incident was spotted by a Border Force officer monitoring the e-gates who stopped the two passengers and re-directed them to staff on an immigration desk.
Last night Conservative MP Tim Loughton, a member of the Commons home affairs select committee, demanded answers over how the security flaw happened.
He said: ‘Hopefully this was a one- off as considerable investment has gone into making these e-passport gates foolproof and they are being rolled out as standard, not just in the UK, but at ports of entry across Europe especially. It is crucial that immigration authorities fully investigate how this happened and give reassurances that there is no more significant fault that would undermine confidence in unmanned border control technology.’ E-gates were introduced in the UK in 2008 and around 240 are in operation around the country, covering 21 air and rail terminals.
Ministers say they help speed up arrivals and improve border security. They can be used by UK and EU citizens plus passengers from some non-European countries who have a ‘chipped’ passport.
The gates use state- of-the-art facial recognition technology to compare the passenger’s face to a digital image on an electronic chip contained in the passport. Details are also checked against immigration and security watch lists.
Once the checks have been completed and cleared – a process which takes around ten seconds – the gates open automatically, allowing the traveller into the UK.
Border Force officers monitor the system and any travellers rejected by the gates are directed to staffed clearance desks.
In November, Mr Bolt told MPs that electronic passport gates at airports could be hampering the fight against people smuggling.
He warned that human traffickers could be using e- gates to smuggle children and modern slavery victims undetected into Britain. He expressed concern that there were not enough border staff to monitor the gates and identify ‘vulnerable’ people.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘A Border Force officer is always on hand to monitor use of the epassport gates and to intervene if there is any suspicious activity, as was the case in this instance.
‘Border Force carries out regular checks to ensure the performance of the technology meets our security needs.’
‘People smugglers could exploit this’