On Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:41:34 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
, at
01:11:24 on Thu, 12 Jul 2012, neill remarked:
Last time I came through an airport, (Gatwick), there was someone
urging those with biometric passports to go to the front and use the
self service positions. Doesn't Heathrow have these facilities?

Yes, they do, and also the last few remaining IRIS gates. But from
observing the gates in action at Stansted, they don't seem to help very
much when it's very busy (but might be useful when the place is
half-manned at a quieter time).

I've found the self-service biometric passport gates to be slower and
less reliable than the human-powered ones. The problem seems to be
that the camera has to move up or down to be aligned with your face,
which can be slow, and it then has to think for a while before
deciding if it recognises you. Trained humans still seem to be a lot
better at face recognition. Plus, a lot of users (me included) forget
how to use them, which slows it down more. It's a bit like the
self-scanning supermarket checkouts.