Byrner
03-19-2008, 12:27 AM
So Terminal 5 officially is opening and as we get ready to walk through the shiny new doors, we also enter a new age in domestic flying.
Passengers will be scannedIn future, if you want to catch a BA flight from London to Belfast, or Manchester to Southampton, you will have your fingerprints taken not once, but twice, before being allowed to board.
The logic behind the move is simple.
The airport's operator BAA wants to offer a departure lounge which is open to both domestic and international travellers.
The problem is that a passenger entering the UK on an international flight, could theoretically swap tickets with someone booked on a domestic flight and land at, say, Glasgow without going through immigration control.
So far, so simple.
However, common departure lounges already exist at Gatwick and Manchester airports.
Here, they simply photograph passengers and check the picture at the departure gate.
So why was the new technology deemed necessary at Heathrow and should we care?
According to a BAA spokesperson, in a mixed lounge, fingerprints are "more reliable than photos, although photos will be used as a back-up".
To that end they are "potentially looking to introduce the same system at Gatwick".
Civil liberties campaigners have expressed concern that police or intelligence agencies may try to access the personal data in the future, the nature of which was previously only available if someone was a crime suspect.
Security will be tightBAA assure though that all information will be destroyed at the end of every day and there is "no question of that information being passed onto anybody".
Critics of the scheme also argue that biometric checks won't necessarily be more secure than passport checks as used around the world.
But again BAA insist it is "the most reliable way of ensuring that the person who checked in is the person who boards the flight".
If passengers are still concerned, they will have little choice but to comply.
Travellers who refuse to give their fingerprints, will in turn be refused entry onto the flight since it will become a condition of carriage.
Many of course will be happy to comply with the new measures in the name of national security and immigration control.
It may be a different matter if the process of taking four prints and a photograph for each passenger ends up creating the kind of delays airport bosses say T5 will eradicate.
News Source: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-13649524,00.html
Passengers will be scannedIn future, if you want to catch a BA flight from London to Belfast, or Manchester to Southampton, you will have your fingerprints taken not once, but twice, before being allowed to board.
The logic behind the move is simple.
The airport's operator BAA wants to offer a departure lounge which is open to both domestic and international travellers.
The problem is that a passenger entering the UK on an international flight, could theoretically swap tickets with someone booked on a domestic flight and land at, say, Glasgow without going through immigration control.
So far, so simple.
However, common departure lounges already exist at Gatwick and Manchester airports.
Here, they simply photograph passengers and check the picture at the departure gate.
So why was the new technology deemed necessary at Heathrow and should we care?
According to a BAA spokesperson, in a mixed lounge, fingerprints are "more reliable than photos, although photos will be used as a back-up".
To that end they are "potentially looking to introduce the same system at Gatwick".
Civil liberties campaigners have expressed concern that police or intelligence agencies may try to access the personal data in the future, the nature of which was previously only available if someone was a crime suspect.
Security will be tightBAA assure though that all information will be destroyed at the end of every day and there is "no question of that information being passed onto anybody".
Critics of the scheme also argue that biometric checks won't necessarily be more secure than passport checks as used around the world.
But again BAA insist it is "the most reliable way of ensuring that the person who checked in is the person who boards the flight".
If passengers are still concerned, they will have little choice but to comply.
Travellers who refuse to give their fingerprints, will in turn be refused entry onto the flight since it will become a condition of carriage.
Many of course will be happy to comply with the new measures in the name of national security and immigration control.
It may be a different matter if the process of taking four prints and a photograph for each passenger ends up creating the kind of delays airport bosses say T5 will eradicate.
News Source: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-13649524,00.html