Selected travellers arriving at London's Heathrow airport can now
bypass the customs queue and enter England by glancing into a
camera.
Virgin Atlantic Airways and British Airways, together with US
technology company EyeTicket, have announced a five-month trial of
a self-service border passage system using iris recognition.
Up to 2,000 American transatlantic flyers who travel frequently
with Virgin and British Airways will be invited to use the system
at Heathrow. These travellers must have their irises scanned and
their identity verified by the UK immigration service before they
can use the service. The iris data will be stored in a central
database, but separate from all other passenger information held by
immigration and the airlines, the companies said.
Self-service immigration stations, dubbed JetStream, have been
placed in the immigration halls of two Heathrow terminals. The
barrier is opened and a border passage ticket is issued after
looking into a camera about centimetres away.
Other European airports are running similar trials. Amsterdam's
Schiphol airport has issued about 1,200 chip cards to nationals of
the European Economic Area in a trial that started in October and
is set to last a year. Users of the Dutch system carry their own
iris information on a chipcard and can also use the system for
departures.
Iris recognition is seen as one of the most reliable types of
biometric identification because the iris, the coloured portion of
the eye, never changes and is unique for each person.