Seeing eye to eye with Heathrow immigration

HEATHROW Airport will next year begin testing eye scans at immigration to increase security and speed up the arrivals procedure.

The trials, involving about 2000 North American travellers with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, were due by now but were postponed after the 11 September terrorist attacks.

Instead of queuing at passport control, passengers will go through a separate turnstile at Terminals Three and Four and look into a camera. In a couple of seconds, their iris patterns will be checked against those pre-stored in a database.

Similar technology was introduced at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport last month and has been tested at Frankfurt, to control access for airport staff.

Iris recognition is just one form of biometric identification being investigated by major airports. In the long term, the technology may be employed in every part of the airport process.

A system called Inspass, which identifies pre-enrolled passengers using hand geometry, is already in use at 10 international airports in the US.

However, its expansion has been halted as other forms of biometric technology are investigated.

In a study by the International Civil Aviation Authority, iris scanning, fingerprinting and facial recognition were seen as the most suitable forms of ID systems for immigration.

"What 11 September has done has shifted the weight of the argument from passenger facilitation - getting more passengers through the airports more quickly - to the security benefits of this technology," according to Thomas Windmuller, programme director for the Simplifying Passenger Travel group, set up nearly two years ago by the International Air Transport Association.

The basis of iris-scanning systems was developed by Iridian Technologies, a group of professors in the US that has licensed it to various companies for aviation applications.

Heathrow will use a method developed by EyeTicket of the US, while the technology at Schiphol was developed by a Dutch firm and is open to all European Union residents plus those of Norway and Iceland.

For e99 (62) a year, passengers can use iris scanners at each border control point and benefit from dedicated parking close to the terminal and priority check-in with nine airlines, irrespective of the class in which they are flying.

Registration for the service, called Privium, takes 15 minutes and involves document checks by Dutch border police and having your irises scanned at a dedicated lounge.

Iris information is then stored in a chip on a card, which passengers simply swipe through a machine before looking into a camera.

Each Privium point also has a dedicated bag and body security check, which saves passengers additional queuing.

Next year, Australia will introduce facial recognition technology, starting with flight crews. Cameras will scan faces and match them against information stored electronically in passports.

Apply for Privium online at www.schiphol.nl/privium or telephone 00800 72 44 74 65.

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