Aussies with e-passports to breeze through UK border gates

AUSTRALIANS travelling to Britain will soon be able to sail through customs using e-passport gates.

UK Chancellor Phillip Hammond announced the change in a budget speech overnight as he declared Britain was “open for business” with Brexit fast approaching.

Electronic gates at Heathrow and other airports are currently only available to European passport holders.

From next year, they will open up to visitors from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the United States.

The Australian High Commission in London welcomed the news, saying “we’ve been working towards this for some time so it is great to see it announced”.

Visitors to the UK who use manual passport gates regularly wait in line for more than two hours.

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye urged the UK government to implement its policy before the leaving the EU in March 2019.

First introduced in the UK in 2008, more than 250 e-passport gates are in place at 22 air and rail ports in the UK.

Cheaper than a Gulfstream, nimbler than a superyacht, a second passport--or a third or fourth--has become another trophy for the ultra-wealthy.

The gates use facial recognition technology to compare the passenger’s face to a digital image recorded in their passport.

Details are also checked against a range of immigration and security watch lists. Once the checks have been completed and cleared, the gate opens automatically.

Border officers monitor the system and any travellers rejected by the gates are directed to staffed clearance desks.

The UK government says e-passport gates help speed up arrivals and improve border security.