3 ms·

I always got a kick out of those "e gates" the lines were always way longer and slower to move than going through the old fashioned boarder agent.

• elthran 3y ago
  As someone that came through London Heathrow this morning - most of the time it's because half of the gates are switched off, seemingly for no reason as far as I can tell. Combine that with the fact that US, EU and UK passports can all use these in the UK, I'm sure if i went to the "other countries" line I'd probably get through faster
  • everfrustrated 3y ago
    In the UK the e-gates are not automated. Your picture goes a few meters to a staffed desk who operates I think 8 gates. It's an efficiency measure not an automation and as such is subject to the usual staffing problems.
    • elthran 3y ago
      Interesting - I did try to find more information about how these work, since I apparently did not understand how they function - but everything I could find mentions "facial recognition algorithm" as the mechanism for determining a person-passport match. Examples - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPassport_gates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPassport_gates https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student/international/news/public/e-passport-gates.aspx https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student/international/news...
    • dfawcus 3y ago
      Ha - so akin to a Discworld camera! Pratchett would be laughing...