Jun 15 2004
An iris recognition system at UK airports will revolutionise immigration controls, Immigration Minister Des Browne said today.
It will store and check the iris patterns of specially selected groups of travellers, giving watertight confirmation of their identity when they arrive in the UK. This will increase security and speed their process through immigration control.
The Home Office will roll out the programme over the next year - starting with Heathrow Airport and then Birmingham, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted by summer 2005. It is expected that within five years more than a million people will be registered to use the system.
Mr Browne said:
"More than 90million people pass through our immigration controls every year. In our era of mass global travel those numbers are set to rise, with increasing numbers of people wanting to visit the UK on holiday, to study and to work.
"We need to ensure that our controls are robust enough to let in only those with the right to be here, and efficient enough to process legitimate passengers quickly."
The Immigration Service will invite certain groups of foreign nationals to take part who have a track record of complying with the UK's immigration laws - for example because they live here permanently or are here as work permit-holders.
People who enrol will have both their eyes filmed using a standard video camera. The data will be stored alongside their personal details, and the process will take around five minutes.
The scheme announced today builds on a successful trial at Heathrow Airport in 2002, which registered the iris patterns of 200 passengers. It demonstrated the potential of the technology to increase border security, as well as being popular with passengers.