The facial recognition and passport checking machines are to be boycotted by the Immigration service’s 5,000 staff who don’t believe they are effective at stopping undesirables getting into the UK.

Currently there are 11 machines running at locations throughout the UK and were introduced as both a cost cutting and time saving exercise.

Each machine takes about 14 seconds to do a passport check whereas a human operative takes 20 seconds, running the data through MI5 and other databases and then opening the gate to allow passengers through.

If the checks aren’t satisfied then the visitor is redirected to an immigration officer, but experts believe their failure to spot discrepancies between the picture on a passport and the holder could present problems.

The robots maker Fujitsu claims a failure rate of 3 in every ten thousand machines but the Home Office ran tests four years ago with a frightening 31% failure in facial recognition.

Via Times Online