Interesting People mailing list archives
Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:58:10 -0700
________________________________________ From: Brian Randell [Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk] Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 8:05 AM To: David Farber Subject: Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer Hi Dave: You might want this front page leading article from today's (UK) Guardian for IP. cheers Brian
Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer Officials say automatic screening more accurate than checks by humans * Owen Bowcott * The Guardian, * Friday April 25 2008 This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday April 25 2008 on p1 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 01:00 on April 25 2008. A face recognition system A face recognition system will scan faces and match them to biometric chips on passports. Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal. From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports. Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports. But there is concern that passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automated gate. To ensure no one on a police watch list is incorrectly let through, the technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of "false negatives" - innocent passengers rejected because the machines cannot match their appearance to the records. They may be redirected into conventional passport queues, or officers may be authorised to override automatic gates following additional checks. Ministers are eager to set up trials in time for the summer holiday rush, but have yet to decide how many airports will take part. If successful, the technology will be extended to all UK airports. <snip> Full story at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/25/theairlineindustry.transport
-- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer David Farber (Apr 25)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer David Farber (Apr 25)