Europe’s travel industry and air travellers can breathe a sigh of relief. For now, at least, passengers will be spared the prospect of being stuck at Arrivals, waiting to have their biometrics scanned en masse.
Last week, the EU announced that its planned roll-out of the Schengen-wide ‘Entry-Exit System’ (EES) has once more been postponed, this time indefinitely. It seems that the underlying IT infrastructure, managed by an organisation named eu-LISA, lacks the computing power to process the vast amount of data the system will generate, and quickly.
What is LISA?
LISA already looks after large-scale IT platforms related to law enforcement in Germany, France and the Netherlands. These countries are unable to implement the final and nationally-required tests of EES, despite hosting a combined 40 percent of affected traveller traffic.
The system proposes to require non-EU citizens to submit fingerprint and face biometrics on their first crossing of Schengen borders. They would then scan their passports at self-service ‘eGates’ during future crossings. Since Brexit, of course, UK citizens fall foul of the rule. The introduction of EES is planned to precede a further scheme called the ‘European Travel Information and Authorisation System’ (ETIAS) – somewhat comparable to the ESTA system in the USA.
The EU and USA claim that such systems will speed the flow of passengers through airports. However, rapid processing requires the digital scan of each face to match the biometric image in the traveller’s passport.
Potential biometric face recognition problems
Thirteen UK airports and selected Spanish airports, including Málaga, already use a similar system to process arrivals. Despite being aimed at “simplicity”, the security system – using the eGates – will deny entry if there’s a digital issue. For example, if you’re wearing spectacles on your passport photo, you must be wearing them at the eGate. And vice-versa. No specs in the photo, but a pair adorning your nose on arrival, will be a fail. Repeated fails will mean a trip to a side office, where a human will compare face and photo. A problem would occur if this happened too frequently at unmanned gates.
Although the EES roll-out has been postponed, some travellers passing through Spain welcome the self-service system. For example, at Málaga Airport, the eGates at securityin Departures mean that passengers simply scan their boarding pass. Identity documents are only presented at passport control and the boarding gate. However, Málaga Airport does not currently use eGates for arrivals, instead making passengers stand in a (sometimes long) queue at Border Control, which is generally manned by 2-4 agents, even at peak times.
Why introduce this tech?
You might ask: why introduce an expensive and complex system to manage European air travellers, when it cannot be supported? Security arguably tops the list, followed by immigration control.
Until recently, the EU relied on individual member states to enforce the “90 day rule” about how long citizens of ‘Third Countries’ (now including Britain) could remain. Spain, which earns 13% of its GDP from tourism, was visibly lax in enforcement. Its airports could be used to leave the Schengen zone if a visitor had overstayed 90 days in the bloc.
Back then, arrivals from Third Countries were (arguably) generally on short vacations or business visits. In recent years, however, the growth in refugee traffic and economic migration means that EU member states have united to tighten border controls.
Cost-cutting plans
The entire process of check-in, security and boarding could be automated by a slightly expanded EES. This would cut the number of staff needed to manage the procedure. For airport authorities and airlines, it would reduce labour costs and overheads.
We can compare the eGates to the widespread introduction of self-checkouts in supermarkets, and the automated enforcement of car parks. In the UK, certain pub chains make customers “check-in” at the parking terminal at the bar, or face a £100 fine. If the parking system fails to recognise your entry time/vehicle, you’ll still receive a fine! And providing these “parking solutions” to large chains is a growing sector.
Computers increasingly say “no” or make mistakes. This can be down to mechanical or electronic failure, bugs in the code, or being hacked. These risks are happily tolerated by companaies that slash their overheads and wages. Clearly, this reduction exceeds the cost of fraud, shoplifting, and other nefarious behaviour permitted by the e-systems.
With computers and apps never proving infallible, is it time to question the value of such trends to save money by automation?