Auto border kiosks trialled by Home Office 'could be fooled with tinted glasses'

07 January 2023 , 16:10

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The Home Office wants to introduce unsupervised machines to check people into the country (Image: PA)

Automatic border checkpoints like those being trialled by the Home Office could be fooled with tinted glasses, boffins have warned.

The Government is spending £500,000 testing ‘ Biometric self-enrolment kiosks’ to be installed in airports and border crossings.

They would eventually be used for checking people into the country by taking photos and fingerprints of arrivals into the country.

The Sunday Mirror understands one of the kiosks, made by Fujitsu, is being sent to Kent University as part of a pilot scheme.

But the University has already been working on the technology, with a 2019 study finding it was harder for machines to detect a ‘presentation attack’ when the user was wearing tinted glasses.

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It's hoped the machines could cut down queues - but the error rate for detecting attacks is affected by sunglasses (PA)

The machines use eye-tracking to check detection cameras are looking at a real face, and not a mask or photograph.

But the study, which has been cited in further research as recently as this year, found that the wearing of glasses “does have an impact on performance of such spoofing attack detection techniques”.

While the impact in their testing was small, the “reduction in accuracy” could mean the devices aren’t suitable for unattended use in high-risk situations.

A Home Office Spokesperson said: “The Home Office has a clear long-term vision to transform the UK Border.

“This includes making visible changes to security, flow and passenger experience by harnessing new technical solutions for automation and focusing Border Force Officers' expertise on high harm cases.”

Mikey Smith