IRIS Scheme Going Away?

Eye Details

I’ve read in several newspapers that the IRIS Scheme will soon be going away.  The government here has already closed the terminals at 2 airports….leaving only the terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick open.  From the Register:

Travellers apparently had a lot of trouble lining up their eyes with the iris recognition camera, resulting in the identification taking a lot longer than it was supposed to. Other passengers wouldn’t be recognised at all by the computer system and ended up having to be manually checked anyway.

I for one have never had those problems.  Every time I re-enter the UK, I head straight for the IRIS queue.  There’s usually 3 to 4 people waiting, I line my eyes up, and go through…. Less than 1 minute.  I don’t even have to remove my glasses.  I think it is an awesome scheme.  Oh well….they told me when I registered that the scheme would be going away and replaced by one that uses biometric passports.  We’ll see…..

Image from ahmed via flickr

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *