Facial recognition gates installed at Birmingham Airport

04/03/2010

By Jeremy Price.

New state-of-the-art facial recognition border gates have been introduced at Birmingham International Airport for the first time, it has been reported.

According to the Birmingham Mail, the new technology scans a traveller's face and matches it to an image stored in a chipped passport.

The gates have now been rolled out at eight UK airports at a cost of £1.2 billion and can be used by all passengers who have received new passports since 2006.

All passports are expected to be chipped by 2016.

Vikky Millar, Border Agency project manager, commented that the technology allows passengers to pass through security in 20 to 25 seconds.

"There will be occasions where the scan may not pick up changes to the face and there will always be the human intervention," she added.

Birmingham International Airport's terminal one building underwent a £45 million extension in June 2007.

The facility served a total of 9.6 million people during 2008.

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