Airport face-scanning robots turned off

Now this is pretty embarrassing – the Manchester Airport in the UK has had its facial recognition scanners turned off simply because there was an incident that involved the robot guard letting a couple through the gate despite having swapped passports. It took a human (naturally) to stop the couple once they’ve gotten through that particular hurdle. According to the UK Border Agency, “Following the incident, the gates at Manchester are suspended and we are reviewing the circumstances of this incident.” Guess the scanners which were built to compare your face with the image stored on the chip of a biometric passport did not function as intended, so those who work at airport security departments need not worry about being rendered redundant anytime soon.

Edwin Kee