Airport security is again under fire over claims that electronic gates have been watered down to reduce queues.
According to the Sunday Times, Lucy Moreton, deputy general secretary of the Immigration Service Union said staff has told her calibration machines had been altered at ‘peak times to minimise queuing’.
The Border Force has denied the claims but John Vine, chief inspector of the UK Border Agency has previously raised similar concerns and has called for an investigation into whether security is adequate.
One alleged incident saw a woman pass through the machines despite presenting her husband’s passport by accident.
The Border Force told the Sunday Times that the e-gates had never been ‘tuned down’.
It said the threshold to confirm a match between a passenger’s face and the passport photo has only ever been increased on security grounds.
The e-gates were introduced four years ago and operate in nine airports to reduce immigration queues and allow passengers to pass if there are enough likenesses to their digital photograph in the passport ‘chip’. The number of similarities needed can be altered.
