Eurotunnel to trial drive-through biometric kiosks under EU border deal

Eurotunnel will install 120 drive-through biometric kiosks at Folkestone and Calais after the European Commission authorised a two-year trial of camera-supervised fingerprinting, a deal designed to prevent what Getlink chief executive Yann Leriche calls "short-term and long-term chaos" at the UK–France border.

The agreement lets Eurotunnel apply airport-style technology to a road crossing for the first time. An "eagle eye" camera system, already deployed at airports in Rome and Paris, will supervise fingerprint capture and facial imaging at each kiosk, with police monitoring remotely rather than standing at every lane — the model used at airport e-gates.

The problem the trial must solve is the EU's entry and exit system, or EES. It requires all third-country citizens, including British passport holders, to submit fingerprints and facial images when entering and leaving the Schengen area. EES was due to go live across the EU on 9 September, but nine of the 27 member states, including France, have still not fully deployed it because of continuing technical faults. At Eurotunnel, EES has long threatened miles-long tailbacks on the approach to the terminal.

What changes for drivers?

Under the new model, each car pulls up to an individual kiosk fitted with two stands per vehicle — one to read passports, one to take fingerprints and facial images. Travellers stay in their vehicles.

Getlink discarded two earlier designs: a handheld tablet passed to passengers for self-fingerprinting, and a system requiring drivers to park and walk to a terminal building. Both would have needed police officers physically present whenever a first-time applicant — a "primo" in border-control jargon — submitted fingerprints. That requirement exists as a safeguard against subterfuge, since criminals could substitute a fellow passenger with "clean skin" fingerprints.

Leriche said the company warned regulators early. "We told the authorities: it is going to be a mess. Many people are going to the wrong place and you can't have police jumping from one place to the next to solve the issues," he said. "It would also mean customers would have a bad experience, particularly at peak time."

A two-year experiment, if France connects

In the coming weeks Leriche will meet UK and French authorities with a 40-page proposal to make Eurotunnel a "laboratory" for an "intelligent border", drawing on emerging technology and lessons from the US and Singapore. The kiosks themselves draw on visits to US–Mexico border controls, where drivers and passengers remain in their cars throughout inspection.

The authorisation followed "many, many discussions" with the European Commission and French authorities, Leriche said, adding: "The French authorities are also on board because for them it is more efficient, too, so we are all aligned on the trial."

The trial will run for two years. Eurotunnel hopes it becomes permanent. "It will prevent the chaos in the long term and the short term and if the experiment works, as hopefully it will, then it will become permanent," Leriche said.

Timeline still uncertain

Leriche said he does not know when France will activate the system. "It has been delayed and delayed and delayed, but our kiosks are there, they can function but the connection with the French system is still not working. It is a question we are asking all the time," he said.

The wider EES programme remains troubled. This week it emerged the EU has filed a lawsuit against IBM and two other companies involved in implementing the system.

If the trial succeeds and France completes its connection, the Folkestone–Calais route would become the first land border where full biometric enrolment happens without travellers leaving their vehicles.