Travelers To Europe Face Up To 6 Hour Lines As New Biometric System Causes Delays

Travelers To Europe Face Up To 6 Hour Lines As New Biometric System Causes Delays

Sean Miller

Despite Europe opening its borders to third world Replacement Migration, the European Union has implemented biometric mandates for travelers from visa-exempt countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

Travelers are reportedly facing lines up to six hours long as they wait to be fingerprinted and face-scanned into the new Entry/Exit System (EES). Some have even been required to get back in line to be fingerprinted and face-scanned again. Others have missed flights due to the delays.

The publication Afar detailed one traveler’s experience, and why the chaos may be the new normal:

British traveler David Newton told the U.K.’s iPaper that he and his family were stuck in a five-hour line at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG), causing them to miss their flight back to England this past spring. Forced to book a new return, they waited another four hours to check their bags, then went through the EES process all over again. In total, they spent 11 hours at the airport.

But Newton’s experience may not be an outlier. At the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro this week, Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s regional vice president for Europe, warned that EES could leave passengers facing “challenging waiting times” of “three, four, five, and even six hours.”

The scanning of travelers’ biometrics has replaced physical stamps in passports.

When travelers first enter one of the 29 European countries in the Schengen Area, they must create their biometric digital file at a self-service kiosk by scanning their passport and submitting their facial scan and fingerprints. That record lasts for three years and is then used by the border authorities of each of the 29 countries to verify the passenger’s identity when they enter and exit the country. To pass through the automated border gates, passengers must rescan their passport and resubmit their fingerprints and facial scan.

Scanning travelers’ hands and faces cannot fix Europe’s problems, as the traditional passport stamping method did not create Europe’s problems. Passport stamping did not cause long delays, invasions of privacy, or a massive rate of illegal entry. The open borders Replacement Migration program did.

While tightening border controls and reducing traveler privacy may appear to be a security measure, Europe has never been less secure or have less privacy than it does now.