UK IMMIGRATION NEWS

New Airport Technology Strengthens UK Border

Monday, 5 February 2007

New biometric technology launched at Birmingham Airport today has been introduced to boost Britain's border controls.

Frequent visitors to the UK can now take advantage from a faster, simpler way to pass through immigration control by using the Government's Iris Recognition Immigration System (IRIS).

This new technology is part of Government plans to strengthen UK borders. It builds on the Home Secretary's commitments in his Review of Immigration to use tougher checks abroad, enhancing technology at the border to count people in and out of the UK, introduce biometric ID for non-EEA foreign nationals and to double the enforcement budget by £100m.

More than 61,000 people across the UK have now registered with Iris and the system has handled more than 210,000 border crossings.

The biometric technology works by photographing a passenger's iris pattern and storing the data in a database, together with passport details.

Iris was initially launched at London's Heathrow airport in March 2006. The system is currently operational at Heathrow Terminals 1 to 4, Manchester Terminals 1 and 2, Birmingham Terminal 1 and Gatwick North, with Gatwick South due to get it during 2007.

A one-off enrolment process for the Iris system takes around five minutes and is free of charge. Registration is carried out by immigration staff in each airport's departures area.