Why EU fingerprints are all over the next threat to British holidaymakers

rishi sunak dover fingerprints

New European Union border rules threaten to create chaos for Britons headed across the Channel this autumn, and a headache for Rishi Sunak over the timing of the general election.

The regulations will require people catching the ferry at Dover or travelling on Eurostar or Eurotunnel trains to have their fingerprints and a facial photo taken before they depart, something that could trigger hours of delays as border facilities creak under the strain.

Some French calculations suggest processing times for a car with a family of four at Dover could jump from less than 60 seconds to seven minutes. And in evidence presented to Parliament in January, Ashford council in Kent warned of a “reasonable worst case scenario” involving 14-hour delays at the port.

With the so-called Entry/Exit System (EES) set to go live on October 6, the Prime Minister could head into an autumn election pitching control of the UK border as a key issue just as news reports are dominated by miles of traffic leading to the Channel and queues snaking around St Pancras station.

The EES was initially scheduled for implementation in 2022 throughout the border-free Schengen area, but has been delayed several times by concerns over technical challenges and data privacy issues.

The latest launch date was chosen to avoid disrupting travel during the Paris Olympics in July and August. While the timetable for the UK election wasn’t a consideration, bookmakers rate Mr Sunak odds-on to go to the polls in October or November.

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke has urged Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron and Transport Secretary Mark Harper to make the smooth introduction of the EES a priority. While progress has been made in addressing some practical concerns at the port, she said regulatory and legal requirements have yet to be fully disclosed by the EU.

She said: “It’s really important that the Government keeps its foot on the pedal in the next few months and presses the EU on this. There’s so much still to be done between now and October.”

Dover is notoriously prone to disruption, with high winds in the Channel, minor accidents on surrounding roads and a shortage of border guards all causing chaos in the past few years.

Additional checks at Dover risk undermining the port’s capacity for handling traffic at a critical time for Rishi Sunak – Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

Increased security checks by French officials after the Brexit vote in 2016 left 250,000 drivers stranded for days in queues that stretched for 12 miles.

Lucy Mayor, a spokesman for the Kent Resilience Forum, which oversees emergency planning for delays at Dover, said protocols for parking trucks on the M20 may be implemented to ease pressure on the port following the implementation of EES.

However, any disruption will be almost wholly limited to private cars, since the bulk of lorry drivers making cross-Channel trips are EU citizens. About 80pc of private journeys originate in the UK, with nearly all these travellers likely required to provide their biometric details.

“Truckers tend to be fairly self-sufficient,” says Mayor. “But these will be ordinary families just trying to get across the Channel, and we’ll have to address welfare issues if they’re stuck for a number of hours. We’re hoping for the best but planning for the worst.”

The EES system is intended to track travellers from non-EU countries whose citizens do not require a visa each time they cross into and out of the bloc, replacing the scanning and stamping of passports mandatory for Britons since Brexit.

For people leaving by plane, and on most other ferry routes, biometric checks will be made when arriving overseas. But at Dover and on cross-Channel trains, they will be performed by French border officials stationed on UK soil.

Doug Bannister, head of the Port of Dover, said that efforts to mitigate delays from the new system are focused on registering travellers’ details during the usual wait time before boarding the ferry.

Port of Dover boss Doug Bannister says steps are being taken to ensure the checks have a minimal impact on travel times – Jamie Lorriman

A registration zone will be located in the holding area where cars line up 90 minutes to an hour before their booked sailing. Facial photos and fingerprints will be captured using a tablet device and combined with personal details to form a profile.

There remains huge scope for the process to stumble and cause delays, according to Gavin Jones, head of immigration at law firm Osborne Clarke.

“My concern is the feasibility of this,” he says.

“It all seems a bit Heath Robinson. There’s so much scope for things to go wrong and for people to be told that their photos are no good or that something else isn’t right.’’

The Department for Transport said the Government continues to work closely with the EU, member states, port authorities and ferry operators “to minimise the risk of delays”.

Eurotunnel, which runs vehicle shuttles through the Channel Tunnel, also examined a tablet-based system but concluded that it was unsuitable in an outdoor environment.

The company has instead invested £80m in heated and well-lit hangars at either end of the tunnel, housing airport-style kiosks where people can create their profiles in comfort. Each is capable of handling more than 50 cars at a time.

“The EES is really designed for a pedestrian passing through an airport with one bag, one passport and plenty of space and light,” says spokesman John Keefe.

“It doesn’t work very well for a coachload of people at a railway terminal.”

Keefe says that Eurotunnel’s biggest concern now is that delays and disruption in Dover could cause congestion on the motorways its customers use to reach the rail terminal in Folkestone.

Eurostar has had to modify the layout of its departures zone at St Pancras station as part of a €10m (£8.6m) programme aimed at meeting the challenges of the EES.

The company said in 2021 that it needed to double the available area to incorporate sufficient registration kiosks, while HS1, which owns the line to the tunnel, warned in February that passenger numbers might need to be capped.

Since then Eurostar has developed plans to install almost 50 kiosks, matching the number that HS1 said were needed, with extra space secured by taking over a restaurant and creating an overflow area on a mezzanine level.

There are varying degrees of confidence within the industry over whether the measures being taken to head off a travel meltdown are sufficient.

But Conservative MPs representing vulnerable south coast constituencies may be hoping the EES is delayed again, at least for a few more months.

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