UK-EU breakthrough will allow airport-style checks at Eurotunnel to avoid border ‘chaos’

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Eurotunnel owner Getlink wants to replicate ‘airport experience’ at Folkestone and Calais, without making people get out of carsAirport-style passport and fingerprinting controls…

Eurotunnel owner Getlink wants to replicate ‘airport experience’ at Folkestone and Calais, without making people get out of cars

Airport-style passport and fingerprinting controls are to be introduced at Eurotunnel in an attempt to prevent “short-term and long-term chaos” in Folkestone and Calais.

In a breakthrough for travellers, the European Commission has agreed to a new system in which an “eagle eye” camera system, already used in Rome and Paris airports to supervise fingerprinting and facial imaging, will be used at the border between the UK and France.

Yann Leriche, the chief executive of Getlink, the Eurotunnel owner, said it had tried to replicate the “airport experience” but wanted to go much further.

Instead of getting out of the car and getting biometrics taken at a terminal building, holidaymakers and business travellers will now be greeted with special drive-through terminals in Folkestone and Calais.

Both sides are now equipped with 120 kiosks under the case of an eagle-eye camera that will be monitored by police, similar to e-gates at airports where police are not physically present at each gate.

In the coming weeks, Leriche will meet UK and French authorities presenting a 40-page proposal to allow Eurotunnel to become a “laboratory” for an “intelligent border” using emerging tech and lessons learned from the US and Singapore.

The entry and exit system (EES) requires all third-country citizens including British passport holders to submit fingerprints and facial images as they enter and exit the Schengen area, but has been delayed for years.

EES was supposed to be active across the EU by 9 September, but nine of the 27 EU member states, including France, have yet to be deploy it fully because of continued technical issues.

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