Heathrow s 1.5bn upgrade may be shelved BAA in Heathrow push Such lounges left open the possibility that a passenger arriving on an international flight could board a domestic flight from the common area and evade immigration control. "Up until now there's always been separate departure lounges at Heathrow," a BAA spokesman said.
"The problem is that an international passenger arriving at Heathrow who is supposed to be transferring to Helsinki, say, could possibly board a flight to Edinburgh and thus avoid immigration." Existing terminals which have common lounges for international and domestic passengers, such as Gatwick, get around this problem by requiring all domestic passengers to have a photo taken, which is then printed on their boarding pass. The spokesman added that while there were no plans yet to introduce biometric security checks across all airports such checks were "definitely the way of the future".
The new machinery at Terminal 5 also had the potential to synchronise with other databases, so that a passenger's biometric information could instantly be checked against, for instance, an ID card database. Biometric screening is just one of a range of security measures that will be introduced at Terminal 5, a tour of the as-yet-unfinished facility taken by Times Online revealed. As many as 120 archway detectors deploying the latest X-ray technology will screen the 70,000-80,000 passengers who will pass through the terminal each day.
The CCTV network will also be "one of the largest in the UK", BAA said. All taxis picking up and dropping off passengers will be required to have a radio frequency identification tag fitted so that their movements can be tracked while embedded sensors underneath all the roads will provide additional monitoring. Starting in September, more than 14,000 people will take part in trials of the facility.
The site, which is the size of Hyde Park, is due to open on March 27. BAA said that the 4.3 billion project, which began construction in 2002, was currently on budget.
I find life a lot simpler just staying at home. I agree that security is an important aspect of flying in this high risk travel environment. The security checks may be bothersome for a legitimate traveler but we need to remember that this security is in place exactly for the legitimate traveler to ensure our safety.
What does concern me though is that we are leaving the boundaries of customers buying a service to each and every one of us becoming suspects. My concern with this figerprint aspect of security is where does the figerprint information come from. I know that my fingerprints are not on file anywhere.
We face an era of identity fraud. How much of our identities are we freely giving complete strangers who are suposed to be trustworthy and professional. Forget terrorism, I will get a job with Customs and become whoever in the world I want to become.
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