“Unlocking Speed: How New UK Passport Scanners Promise to Revolutionize Your Return Travel Experience!”

Navigating passport control is an experience that can induce more anxiety than a blind date with a mime artist. Seriously, who hasn’t felt that pulse quicken, imagining the border control officer’s raised eyebrow as they scrutinize your passport like it holds the secret to world peace? And let’s be honest—there’s an unmistakable dread in that moment. You’re coming back home to the UK from what should have been a blissful holiday, and yet, a sly thought crosses your mind: what if they whisk you away into some clandestine airport jail simply because you forgot about that single crumb of an end-of-vacation sandwich hiding in your carry-on? Over time, the once manageable process is becoming entangled in the red tape of post-Brexit changes, adding layers of confusion (and queues). But, just as the world is moving into a digital age, so too are our travel experiences! How about a future where you glide through passport control without breaking stride, all thanks to facial recognition technology? Intrigued? Buckle up, because travel may soon begin to resemble a scene from a sci-fi movie. LEARN MORE.

There’s not much worse in this world than the experience of going through passport control.

Even when returning home to the UK from holiday, there’s always a small part of me that thinks they’re going to reject my passport and keep me inside some sort of airport jail.

There are plenty of perfectly innocent passengers who have found themselves behind bars after carrying the wrong thing through passport control and airport security.

Thanks to a certain vote going through on January 31 2020, queues have only increased for Brits when coming back to the country after a break, and there have been plenty of changes to the way we travel in the five and a bit years since.

Old-style UK passport. (Huw Fairclough/Getty Images)

We are living in a digital age and there are even plans to have passports available on a government app, which might slightly reduce the amount of times I check my bag to see if it’s still there while abroad.

For those of you who have a fear of flying, or simply prefer to travel abroad by a combination of car and boat, another technological change is reportedly coming, which is aiming to make returning to the UK far easier and quicker.

Families returning through British ports will reportedly now not have to leave their cars in order to individually scan each passport, with a high-powered camera instead analysing their faces from within their cars, before matching them to the correct record.

A source told The Telegraph: “Under the new system, instead of getting your passports out, you look at the camera.

“They have these really high-powered cameras that can look through the windscreen and take a picture of your face and match it to the face on the database.

“Assuming all is well, then you get the green light and you drive through the border.

“The other option is that you wind down your window and you all look at an iPad.

“The aim is to use the technology on maritime and rail routes, then on air routes.”

Contactless corridors could soon arrive in airports (Getty Stock Images)

The cameras have been trialled at ports in Great Britain since November 2024, and it is hoped that a similar change could soon be introduced in airports as well.

‘Contactless corridors’ would scan every returning passenger and allow them to simply walk through, without the stress of telling a stern-faced border force officer how your trip to Amsterdam went.

It all sounds a bit 1984, but then again, everything does these days, and anything which reduces travel stress is a positive change in my eyes.