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> Those e-gates really suck always. What's so hard about reading MRZ? Its because its not fully-automated. If you keep an eye out, you'll spot an officer sitt

> Those e-gates really suck always. What's so hard about reading MRZ? Its because its not fully-automated. If you keep an eye out, you'll spot an officer sitting in a booth with a couple of LCD screens. They are actually touch screens showing a grid of mugshots of the people passing through the gates. Officer needs to tap his finger on your mugshot to open the gate. Hence if its a busy day, or the officer is eating a donut, you'll get the sucky delay experience. Obviously there is little public information available, but there is one public document that makes some vague hints about what a "Monitoring Officer" does, including a reference about requiring being logged into a "Monitoring Terminal". See here[1]. [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1045688/An_inspection_of_ePassport_gates_June_2020_to_January_2021.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

iso1631 4y ago
A decade ago Heathrow had IRIS entry at passport control. You had to register, and in theory had to use heathrow a lot to get on the list. It was great, walk in, no need to fish out a passport, 5 seconds later you walked through, and because it was frequent flyers only you didn't have grandma still wearing sunglasses, or dropping her passport, or putting her boarding card in, etc. I measured the "e-passport" queue at Paris last time I got the train to London. There were 5 gates, on average each one took 45 seconds to process someone, the fastest being 31 seconds, the slowest over a minute before rejecting them That's 1 person every 9 seconds, or 400 per hour. The hourly train has 900 seats. That simply doesn't work.
- WildGreenLeave 4y ago
  This IRIS entry is the same with Privium in Schiphol (which, as of this time is not accepting people). But, what I don't understand, why the hate on the e passport gates? I really like them at Schiphol. There are usually about 8 of them and in my experience there are always more egates open then actual officers. And they are on par or faster than an officer. Could it be more efficient? yes. But, if the alternative is an old fashioned officer this is better.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    Two aspects 1) People don't like them when they total throughput turns out to be less than before, which tends to be the case - especially when people notice them. This is quite common as they often replace 1 passport officer with 1 e-passport machine. 2) As a user they are more difficult to use, and no faster. For me, manual passport control into my home country involves dropping my passport on the desk with one hand, standing for 20 seconds, then leaving. For e-gates it means opening it up (usually a two handed process), sliding into a reader, making sure the crinkly passport bit doesn't scrunch up, wait, wait, wait, half the time get told to reinsert, wait again, look at a camera, wait, wait, then about 1 in 4 times get rejected and have to do the manual process 3) For the minority of people who had iris, they replaced a system which was better for the user in all ways Iris itself was of course a security issue - it was no longer something you have + something you are, it was just something you are, which was the beauty. Have too many people on the system and you get false positives and end up with a tremendous mess Of course the best innovation in passport control in the UK would be to join Schengen, so we don't need passport control for the majority of arrivals into the UK. Would save a fortune and make everyones lives easier.
    - WildGreenLeave 4y ago
      About #2, maybe this is something that is different in Schiphol compared to Heathrow. None of the things you mention here are a problem to me. I always get a picture in one go, my pasport fits easily (even with a cover), it doesn't scrumble because it is glass and it slides in automatically, both gates open automatically. Along with that I think there are 8 gates which are being checked by 2 or 3 people, but I might be mistaken of that.

iso1631 4y ago

A decade ago Heathrow had IRIS entry at passport control. You had to register, and in theory had to use heathrow a lot to get on the list. It was great, walk in, no need to fish out a passport, 5 seconds later you walked through, and because it was frequent flyers only you didn't have grandma still wearing sunglasses, or dropping her passport, or putting her boarding card in, etc. I measured the "e-passport" queue at Paris last time I got the train to London. There were 5 gates, on average each one took 45 seconds to process someone, the fastest being 31 seconds, the slowest over a minute before rejecting them That's 1 person every 9 seconds, or 400 per hour. The hourly train has 900 seats. That simply doesn't work.

WildGreenLeave 4y ago
This IRIS entry is the same with Privium in Schiphol (which, as of this time is not accepting people). But, what I don't understand, why the hate on the e passport gates? I really like them at Schiphol. There are usually about 8 of them and in my experience there are always more egates open then actual officers. And they are on par or faster than an officer. Could it be more efficient? yes. But, if the alternative is an old fashioned officer this is better.
- iso1631 4y ago
  Two aspects 1) People don't like them when they total throughput turns out to be less than before, which tends to be the case - especially when people notice them. This is quite common as they often replace 1 passport officer with 1 e-passport machine. 2) As a user they are more difficult to use, and no faster. For me, manual passport control into my home country involves dropping my passport on the desk with one hand, standing for 20 seconds, then leaving. For e-gates it means opening it up (usually a two handed process), sliding into a reader, making sure the crinkly passport bit doesn't scrunch up, wait, wait, wait, half the time get told to reinsert, wait again, look at a camera, wait, wait, then about 1 in 4 times get rejected and have to do the manual process 3) For the minority of people who had iris, they replaced a system which was better for the user in all ways Iris itself was of course a security issue - it was no longer something you have + something you are, it was just something you are, which was the beauty. Have too many people on the system and you get false positives and end up with a tremendous mess Of course the best innovation in passport control in the UK would be to join Schengen, so we don't need passport control for the majority of arrivals into the UK. Would save a fortune and make everyones lives easier.
  - WildGreenLeave 4y ago
    About #2, maybe this is something that is different in Schiphol compared to Heathrow. None of the things you mention here are a problem to me. I always get a picture in one go, my pasport fits easily (even with a cover), it doesn't scrumble because it is glass and it slides in automatically, both gates open automatically. Along with that I think there are 8 gates which are being checked by 2 or 3 people, but I might be mistaken of that.