Passenger fingerprinting coming to Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester
09.03.08
Mandatory fingerprinting is to be introduced at three UK airports - Gatwick, Manchester and Heathrow’s Terminals 1 and 5. Passengers will be photographed at check-in and will give four fingerprints on a pad at a special station before passing through security. The process will be repeated just before getting on the plane to ensure it is the same person boarding. Airport staff will also check the photograph against the person's face.
About 4 million domestic passengers expected to pass annually through Heathrow Terminal 5, due to open on March 27, will pass through the process. International passengers will not be fingerprinted, as they must show a passport when they check in and before they board their flight. It has already been in place at Gatwick since the start of February and will also apply to Heathrow Terminal 1 and Manchester Airport later this year.
The airports say that these biometric checks are necessary because domestic and international passengers are not segregated at these terminals. However, civil liberties campaigners have raised concerns about the possibility of security agencies trying to access personal data. Dr Gus Hosein, of the London School of Economics, an expert on the impact on technology on civil liberties said: ‘There is no other country in the world that requires passengers travelling on internal flights to be fingerprinted.
But a spokesman for BAA said the move was necessary to stop criminals, terrorists and immigrants getting around border controls and that the scheme has been designed after consultation with the Home Office. He also said that the biometric information would be destroyed after 24 hours and would not be passed on to the police.
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