The video is from 8th May 2024, although you could have seen the same the previous May and several times before.
For anyone who hasn’t flown recently, E-gates are automated access points which use facial recognition to check a person’s identity. They can then enter the country without talking to a Border Force officer.
Users need to be over 12 and from the UK, EU, US, Canada, Japan, Australia, or New Zealand. After a stuttering start, 270 E-gates are now in place, at all major UK airports and international rail terminals.
When they work, travel is quicker. When they do not, people can end up spending longer in the terminal than they did on the plane.
Our concern is for ATA carnet users who are carrying goods in luggage, or flying to rendezvous with a freight consignment. Delays or disjointed arrivals are the types of issue carnets normally help to avoid.
The Recent Problem
Initial E-gate use saw a number of hitches, which slowly reduced until the major outage in May 2023. Border staff and the public were at the time given assurances that the same situation would not recur.
If anything, the recent malfunction was worse and accompanied by similar statements. The cause was an “IT issue”, which is the equivalent of a garage saying that your car won’t go because it has stopped.
The cause was in reality failure of a secure, government Wi-Fi system. This meant Border Force’s security database could not update, so crashed instead, requiring staff to go to manual checking and use a back-up security database.
Related issues with manual checking procedures added to delay, as did lower Border Force staff numbers than pre E-gate times and less desks for them to use.
Potential Drawbacks
As mentioned, business delay is an evident issue, although there are others, including the possibility of mistakes on those who are admitted.
The Immigration Service did state that “At no point was border security compromised.” but concerns remain. One objective of the system was to have real time notifications of unwanted travel and whether they all reached the back-up is unclear.
Part of that back-up, the Warnings Index, is also due to be switched off soon. The Commons Public Accounts Committee have however warned the Home Office that they have “No proof that other systems can cope with passenger volumes”.
Beyond this, throngs of unhappy passengers put pressure on Border Force officers, which can cause errors. Neither is the passengers being unhappy welcome.
They have a bad experience and even though outages are rare, adverse events gain excessive publicity. A proportion of people may begin to wonder whether the UK is such a great place to visit, or do business.
An Essential Service
There have been defensive statements that E-gates were rushed into use but they were already three years late at the time. Border Force’s wish for a contactless system has not been matched by effective project management.
We can all make mistakes but there is a need to ensure that blank E-gates are not seen again. The recent outage may have been avoided with greater foresight, or reinstatement of a key service been achievable with greater speed.
All passengers hope that vulnerabilities will be given thought and plans put in place for prompt recovery. There shouldn’t be a problem, as the system is currently being managed by Fujitsu, a company you may have heard of.