The Home Office eventually resolved a nationwide ‘issue’ that led to significant delays at passport e-gates.
UK airports such as Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, and Manchester have all reported delays in arrivals late on Tuesday 7th May 2024 due to a Border Force issue.
E-gates, which are automated gates utilizing facial recognition technology to verify a person’s identity, allow entry into the country without the need for interaction with a Border Force officer.
According to the government’s website, there are over 270 e-gates installed at 15 air and rail ports across the UK, designed to facilitate faster entry into the country. However, this recent outage has necessitated manual processing of passengers by Border control staff.
The Home Office, responsible for the Border Force, announced in an early Wednesday 8th May 2024 statement: ‘eGates at UK airports resumed operation shortly after midnight.‘
A Home Office spokesperson reportedly attributed the disruptions to a ‘system network issue’ (whatever that means) – initially reported at approximately 19:50 BST, indicating the problems lasted over four hours. They assured that ‘border security was never jeopardized, and there is no evidence of any malicious cyber activity.’
Nothing new – it’s happened before and it’s a miserable experience!
Britain’s automated border gates system experienced a crash in May 2023, leading to extensive queues and delays for passengers lasting several hours.
Additionally, the country’s air traffic system suffered a meltdown in August 2023 due to a technical issue, disrupting the National Air Traffic Service for a prolonged period. The recurring nature of these incidents raises questions about the underlying causes.
Why does it KEEP happening?
