e-Gates will shortly be available for use by British citizens travelling into Europe, as confirmed in a statement made by the Prime Minister as part of a summit with EU leaders in London on Monday 19 May.
The address, which outlined details of the newly-announced UK-EU deal, confirmed the change to EU policy, which will remove all ‘legal barriers to e-gate use for British nationals travelling to and from European Union’ following the implementation of stricter biometric assessments later this year.
British travellers have been required to utilise manned desks when proceeding through passport checks since the implementation of Brexit in 2020, with other travellers permitted to use e-gates, which are able to process passengers via the use of facial recognition technology as opposed to stamp & manual check procedures carried out by EU border officials.
The move is expected to reduce wait times at a number of airports throughout Europe, with the deal promising the ‘use of e-gates where appropriate’, leading to questions as to which airports will offer the use of the technology to travelling British nationals.
The Prime Minister has called on all EU member states to ‘help make this a reality without delay’.
Currently, British passports can be used at e-gates in the EU at a small number of airports in both Portugal and Spain, but the new deal is believed to extend the allowance to a wider number of airports following the launch of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) this coming October, which remove the need for non-EU citizens to stamp their passports upon arrival and departure, replacing the current procedure with a combination of both fingerprint and photography-based identification.
