Travelling from London to France on Eurostar trains will be made easier with the introduction of a new facial verification system.
Passengers must download an app and scan their identity document and verify their face and ticket. When at the station, a screen will detect the passenger’s face and let them through if the recognition is successful.
The new service is available to Eurostar Business Premier and Carte Blanche passengers.
Travellers will still have to scan their bags at security checkpoints on the UK side and present their documents to French border control officials upon arrival.
Eurostar runs the high-speed trains that directly link the UK to France and Belgium via the Channel Tunnel. In the post-Brexit and the post-Covid period, its service suffered from congestion and delays.
Passengers must stamp UK passports for outbound travel and are subject to customs control in France. Brits coming into France who do not have a French visa or residency card are restricted to stays of less than 90 days every 180 days.
In a letter to the Transport Select Committee, Eurostar CEO Gwendoline Cazenave said that the stamping of British passports by continental police added at least 15 seconds to individual passengers’ border crossing times. She said that the automated systems such as e-gates were “less effective.”
Saving Time
According to Ms. Cazenave, the SmartCheck system is a “solution for a faster and seamless check-in experience.” Biometric face recognition will enhance the customer departure journey and increase capacity in stations, said Ms. Cazenave.A biometric corridor will move security checks away from the station and will save “precious time and space at the border,” said iProov founder Andrew Bud.
Customers should expect a faster, more convenient, less crowded, yet even more secure boarding process, added Mr. Bud.
With the launch of SmartCheck, Eurostar became the first rail travel operator to adopt biometric face verification, iProov said in its statement.
The roll-out of the SmartCheck system on Tuesday follows the trial that took place between December 2021 and April 2022 and was funded by the Department for Transport.