On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 13:46:03 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:
I will admit I always liked the non-uniformed informality of the UK
approach. They could quite easily have tightened it up without losing
that typically British friendliness.

I think some professionals' work is enhanced by a uniform, with all
the advantages of instant recognition - I'm thinking particularly of
the emergency services. But immigration people, also professionals,
aren't improved by a uniform that makes them look like a Top Shop
security guard.

As far as I remember, my passport has been scanned each time I've been
through a UK airport this year, even when the queues have been long.
It seems to take a relatively long time scan/lookup, perhaps it's
quicker with the new biometric passports.

Has anybody here registered with IRIS? This might be the solution. I
haven't registered, but I think I will next time I pass through. A
pity that it has not yet been extended to Eurostar arrivals.
(http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/applying/iris/)

Richard.

On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 14:13:07 +0100, Richard
wrote:

Has anybody here registered with IRIS? This might be the solution. I
haven't registered, but I think I will next time I pass through. A
pity that it has not yet been extended to Eurostar arrivals.

A bunch of us registered to reduce the pain of LHR arrivals. It's a
relatively pleasant experience in LHR T4 to register: the staff were
pleasant and efficient. However the one sole machine in T4 arrivals is
not well. According to the passport bod it's been out of action for 1
week now.

You get several problems with use of Iris. Firstly, there's only one
per arrivals area. Sometimes the EU queue is faster, especially when
someone in front is doing their best make a balls of reading their
eyeballs. Secondly, the system is not really intuitive: you wait for
the glass panels to slide shut, red X becomes green arrow, step up,
glass panels open and admit one. Some people step too close to the
panel and it stays shut in a sulk until a space is left.

Unlike Schiphol's much older and costly (EUR75?) system which tips
failures in front of the EU q,, a 'reject' has to either walk all the
way back to a proper EU queue or scale barriers. You're meant to slip
to the shorter Q: EU or rest of world but the rejects I've seen tend
to loiter and block - the system has been kind to me for 4 or so weeks
and it's fair to say that it works on cop & clue as well as the iris.
Peeps lacking cop tend to drastically slow down the process.

Registering needs a proof of ID and residency. 10 or so mins on a good
day but they open well after the red eyes (!) have departed.

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