We have these in NL. They malfunction frequently, people don't understand what is going on and the people staffing them are unable to do much to improve throughput. It was just a cost savings measure so that fewer border guards can process more people but from the point of view of the travelers it is a net loss.
Before there would be a very short wait, you'd walk up to the border guard (one of three or four on duty typically), put your passport on their desk, they'd look at it for three seconds and swipe it, then you'd be on your merry way 10 seconds later. Now you wait for 10 or 15 minutes (if you're lucky), insert your passport into the machine, wait for the silly glass doors to close, have your passport spat back out again, repeat the whole thing, find that you were looking a bit too low, so re-do that and so on until finally the second set of silly glass doors opens and you can move on.
It's a complete failure from a usability point of view.
The machines you find around the EU are completely different from the ones in the article.
The EU machines just scan your passport, including RFID data, and take a photo of your face. All of this is then sent to a border guard in a booth who manually matches your face to your passport.
The “efficiency” boost comes from allowing a single border guard to check 4-5 passports simultaneously, without having the delay that comes from waiting for the next person to walk forward and present a passport.
In Heathrow, London, the digital gates process people much faster than normal gates, and have half the staff. Unfortunately they are a little confusing for non-tech literate people who often get stuck.
Where in Heathrow are there digital gates to exit?
The US already has a variety of digital gates to _enter_ the country - similar to the digital gates that Heathrow has at immigration - but this article is talking about special electronic gates at _exit_ which I've never seen at any LHR terminal.
OP was taking about passports on the way in to country (schengen had passport checks on the way out, but UK doesn't)
However Heathrow T5 (and T2 I believe) have face scanners on departure, for domestic travellers. Passengers on a flight from Heathrow to Glasgow don't need a passport or any other form of photo ID (it's a domestic flight), but they mingle with international transiting passengers who have not immigrated into the UK (say flying Delhi to Heathrow to New York)
To ensure passengers can't bypass immigration by swapping boarding cards, they take photos of domestic passengers on entry to security (either post immigration for Int-domestic transit, or post check in for domestic-domeatic). This is then compared with the passenger actually boarding the flight at the gate, and it's mostly automated (with manual override).
I just went through a similar system at Hong Kong. It worked well and I breezed through the automated gates while a long line of people were backed up at the traditional line. Perhaps they just did a better job of designing the system, but you scan your passport at one station and then step forward into a scannner with a sign telling you where to look. A gate closes behind you. If it fails, it flagged a human to that lane but kept you locked in the box. In my case, it beeped and opened the door into the terminal.
I’ve lost a significant amount of weight since my passport photo was taken. Several human border guards in other counties suggested I get a new passport. One required me to show a second form of ID. The camera system had no issue.
It's worth noting that the US does not have exit immigration, so this wouldn't be a "step up" in the same way, but of course your comments about how well it works stand.
Now that you mention it, I did scan my fingerprints. Don’t know what they compared them with - I literally crossed the border an hour before by car and didn’t scan my fingerprints there.
I've been to the one in Amsterdam more than once and they work just fine. I've also tried a few other ones and so far they've all worked better than border guards. The reason is because you can fit more scanners on the same surface area than border guards. Even if one is not working "perfectly", I'm pretty sure the rate of people going through is higher regardless.
Amsterdam isn't a great advertisement for the passport gates. As a regular traveller through Amsterdam for 17 years (including right now, my flight leaves in 40 minutes...), I have never seen worse queues or longer delays for incoming passengers.
The last time I arrived at Schiphol, I had plenty of time to compare the relative throughput of the gates and manual checks. At best two automated gates have around half the throughput of one equally wide manual desk for EU travellers.
Schiphol's big problem, however, seems to have been using the gates as an excuse to cut back staff too far.
The result, at least, on the D pier, is regular queues of passengers through the passport hall and back up to the main concourse.
> Schiphol's big problem, however, seems to have been using the gates as an excuse to cut back staff too far.
From what I read it's the combination of cutting back immigration staff together with airlines (KLM) not sharing their expected passenger numbers anymore plus a significant increase in passengers. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_pa..., Schiphol grew by 9%, year before by 6%
I quite like the automated gates. Per line is more inefficient but total throughput seems higher. Plus, seems quicker to go through.
I feel that I want a border guard more than this. This isn't going to catch someone doing something funny. (Like smuggling drugs out of the country, or smuggling other people out)
> This isn't going to catch someone doing something funny. (Like smuggling drugs out of the country, or smuggling other people out)
That's not what it is for.
It's simply to verify that what your passport says about you picture wise matches your face, and to be able to detain you in case you have an outstanding arrest warrant or open traffic fines.
That “border guard” is an immigration agent, all they care about is if you’re legally allowed in the country. The customs agents are usually after you clear immigration, and they only care if you’re in possession of something illegal.
Even if the human operator is faster, you can buy many more machines. Airport immigration is extremely inefficient, e.g. Malaysia being one of the worst, but I think there's much that can be improved if the space was disrupted.
My idea would be when you approach the immigration hall there are 50+ first-step machines where you slide in your passport, it does just enough to detect if you're going to need a grilling or likely to pass through with no questions, then takes your biometrics if required, and then it prints you a number and you head to either an automated gate or low grade desk operator or high grade desk operator for the more thorough processing. It could potentially also discriminate against old people - you don't want a 70 year old queuing for long after a long flight so they get priority etc...
Then again nowadays I'm quite good at figuring out which lines will move faster, it might sound racist, but if a flight from Ethopia has just arrived at KL then I'm going to choose the line with less passengers from that flight as they mostly get grilled or havent got right documentation or completed formalities properly. I also avoid Chinese on exit immigration in BKK as they almost always miss out details from their departures form (perhaps due to no Chinese instructions) and don't heed the advice to move out the way whilst they complete the form. Children can be a problem too, and a short line might be masking a few brats hidden in the leg space of adults, always take a side scan of the line, because 1 child = 1.25x adult time - lifting the brat up for photos etc... Avoid Indians/Pakistans/Bangledash on check-in as they travel with the kitchen sink and 9/10 there going be at least one argument over excess luggage. Sometimes you can't really tell and just look for preparedness - do these people have their passports in their hands ready to go, or buried in the handbags, have they removed their cap or will they wait to be told. grumpy traveler
Totally different form factor but software wise I would expect them to do the same thing. The passport photographs taken here are definitely spec'd with biometric intent, the list of what to do and what not to do runs to 15 items or so.
Before there would be a very short wait, you'd walk up to the border guard (one of three or four on duty typically), put your passport on their desk, they'd look at it for three seconds and swipe it, then you'd be on your merry way 10 seconds later. Now you wait for 10 or 15 minutes (if you're lucky), insert your passport into the machine, wait for the silly glass doors to close, have your passport spat back out again, repeat the whole thing, find that you were looking a bit too low, so re-do that and so on until finally the second set of silly glass doors opens and you can move on.
It's a complete failure from a usability point of view.