Planning a trip to Europe? Travel experts warn of possible complications, as a new Entry/Exit Scheme is set to be implemented soon. Find out more!
Passport Rule Across EU Mandating Facial Recognition Tech Could Create Chaos
A new potential passport law has been planned to come into force this year, making facial recognition technology a mandatory requirement along with eGates at EU airports. The law will be applied when entering any EU country, some of which are iconic tourist hotspots like Spain, Greece, France or the UK.
The EU Entry/Exit Scheme And Its Possible Aftermath
The new law introduced is the EU Entry/Exit Scheme, also known as the EES, which requires travellers to submit their fingerprints and facial scans during their visit to any country that’s in the European Union. This data will be collected and stored alongside your other details like your name, passport ID, date of entry and exit from each EU country,
A CEO at a flight compensation firm, AirAdvisor, has warned that the new passport rule could be source of concern, since the technology itself can be vulnerable to outages. During the added processing time, this measure can add hours of delays in the case of any outages like those that happened recently at the passport e-gates at Manchester Airport, Edinburgh Airport, Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport.
As the facial recognition technology hasn’t been extensively used at a larger scale yet, any sort of fallout in the system could cause chaos at the UK borders. Travellers that have their flights delayed due to these processing delays will not be able to get a refund for their flights either.
The EU’s Take On The EES
The law is being implemented at a time when immigration is very much a hot-button topic for many countries around the world. With many European countries shifting to the right politically and new boundaries being drawn around the ‘far-right’ political movement, effective border control is on everyone’s mind.
The EU believes that the EES could be a time-saving measure that eliminates the need for human identification and verification, thereby automating the process as a whole. They say that the aim is to build a system that allows non-EU nationals to travel to European countries with more ease and efficiency.
Ultimately, the EES will also identify travellers at the exit gates who have stayed past their visa’s allowance and create a streamlined border control system that denies EU officials from entering any EU country without providing their biometric data. The effectiveness of the scheme will all come down to the effectiveness of its implementation and whether it streamlines the process for travellers or serves as a hindrance that’s indiscriminate to legal and illegal migrants.