Imagine just going through passport control without actually having to get your passport out of your pocket.

That is the aim of the UK border force, which according to a report in the Times, is looking to introduce a trial system sometime this year

in which if you are registered on a central database, as I am because I've got a British passport,

you will simply go up to a desk. You'll look into the camera rather than having to at present,

get your passport out and find

the right page and put it in and everything, you will just be able to look, probably not smile,

certainly remove your glasses and any hats and then off you go and go through the gates.

It's really just an improvement in sophistication for the existing

E gates, which have been with us for a number of years. And the purpose of those is simply to say,

right, if you are from the UK, the European Union, North America, Australia and some other

nations, then we think that you don't probably present

much of a threat and so therefore we just want to check that it's your passport and that it's you.

Now, with the electronic travel authorisation system that the UK is introducing, it's gradually being rolled out, the country will have a lot more

information on a lot more travellers and so therefore it is possible that you would be able to do

this. It's not an astonishing leap in technology, it is simply saying rather than reading

the information embedded in here, we're just going to go straight

to the centralised database and have a look and see how the facial characteristics change.

And then you walk up and they say, oh, yes, we've been expecting you.

In you come.

No problem.

And in Dubai, where they're already doing something very similar they say the transaction

time is reduced to just five seconds if this happens and bear in mind that we've had an upgrade

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