Uk Passport Control

[cameliaheartfelt]

When arriving back in the UK, can you choose whether you go in the queue to show your passport at a manned desk or in the chip recognition queue? When i came back from holiday, the passport queue official was syphoning off so many to each option. He then closed the desk line pulling the chord across. I get very panicky within the cubicle going through the chip reader and had to explain and almost plead to go up to the desk. He let me go through but didn't like it. Surely i have a choice even though i have a chip in my passport.

[TheChair]

//Surely i have a choice even though i have a chip in my passport.//
I doubt it. Presumably, those that the official was sending to the manned desk didn't have e-passports, and eventually everyone will go via the chip-reader.

[mushroom25]

just tell them your chip doesn't work. you'll then be directed to the desk line.

[Khandro]

But you had to go through a cubicle to test for metal objects when you departed from wherever, anyway?

[ummmm]

I don't know what cubicle you're talking about?

[chelle7272]

I've necer been through a cublicel for metla detecting, just an archway.

[mushroom25]

here you are Ummm...

http://blog.m2sys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/GAT_South_eGates.jpg

[ummmm]

Mushroom - that's not a cubicle. That's like something in a train station.

[237SJ]

Ummm - there are glass doors at the end which will be closed so you are closed in on three sides (the doors are open in that picture)

[ummmm]

Never seen one before. Most flights I take are to and from Luton.

[Khandro]

chelle;//I've necer been through a cublicel for metla detecting, just an archway.//
Your post sent me to the dictionary;

1. (Building) a partially or totally enclosed section of a room, as in a dormitory

[chelle7272]

Oops excuse the awful spelling in last post!

Khandro, I'm unsure what you are saying - I was talking about metal detectors as here;
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=airport+metal+detector&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&;ved=0ahUKEwixzK3JmM7RAhUFLsAKHVwbDk4Q_AUICCgB&biw=1366&;bih=657
(Sorry for long link) wehere you just walk through, not an enclosed section of anything?

[ummmm]

But they aren't passport control. Our passports and boarding passes have to be produced before we get to them.

[Zacs-Master]

I think some people are confused between security scanners going into an airport and passport booths which read the chip in your passport on the way out of an airport.

[ummmm]

I've never seen the passport scanners before.

[jno]

you do sometimes get cubicles for metal detection

http://tinyurl.com/jdqags7

but I've not seen them for passport control - there's just transparent barriers in front that open to let you through. What airport were you at, camelia?

[ummmm]

I often set the alarms off, no idea why, and one time I was put in a body scanner, another time I had my hands and feet swabbed...

[Khandro]

All these inconveniences and humiliations we have to undergo must make the Muslim terrorists feel very happy.
Seeing an elderly couple in their 80's being made to remove their shoes, is a sad sight indeed.

[EDDIE51]

The entire idea of the 'chip' passports is to speed up the process.Once all passports have chips the manual option will only be for 'failed' passports that don't scan.

[Zacs-Master]

The machines need to be a lot more reliable / simple to use in my experience.

[sunny-dave]

The UKBA may as good as a chocolate fireguard at keeping out unwanted immigrants, but it is stunningly effective at keeping UK citizens waiting in line for extended periods - last time I was at Stansted at least one of the queue monitors must have been trained in Soviet Russia in the bread queues of the 1950s.

I 'only' had to wait an hour to use one of the automatic gates (of which fewer than half were actually working). The poor people in the manual check queue were well over 90 minutes and heading for 2 hours when I looked.