Face scans at UK airport passport control this summer
25.04.08
Airline passengers are to undergo facial scans at a British airport for the first time this summer, the Guardian newspapers report. The Boarder and Immigration Agency (BIA) will introduce facial recognition technology this summer at selected airports as part of its drive to improve security and ease congestion, according to media reports today.
The pilot project will start at some airports in Britain and initially cover UK and European Union citizens who have passports with biometric details. As part of the project, Human will not screen passengers, The Guardian reports. This will see unmanned clearance gates introduced to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports.
British border security officials are reported to believe that the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. However, there is concern that passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automated gate, the newspaper adds.
However, some campaign groups are skeptical. Phil Booth of the No2Id Campaign (no to identity cards) told the Guardian: ‘Someone is extremely optimistic. The technology is just not there. The last time I spoke to anyone in the facial recognition field they said the best systems were only operating at about a 40% success rate in a real time situation. ‘I am flabbergasted they consider doing this at a time when there are so many measures making it difficult for passengers.’
Gus Hosein, a specialist at the London School of Economics in the interplay between technology and society, added: ‘It's a laughable technology...It's not that it (the computer) could wrongly match someone as a terrorist, but that it won't match them with their image. A human can make assumptions, a computer can't.’
Add to: del.icio.us | Digg it | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
