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TRAVEL NEWS

Is start date for EES biometric passport checks set to be delayed again?

The EU's new EES system of biometric passport checks at borders has already been repeatedly delayed, but now there are reports that it could be pushed back again amid concerns that transport terminals - especially in the UK - are not ready.

Published: 17 July 2024 16:12 CEST
Is start date for EES biometric passport checks set to be delayed again?
A passenger proceeds through an automated ePassport gate. Photo by PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP

After several postponements, the new EU border security system known as the Entry & Exit System (EES) is due to go live in the autumn of 2024.

The European Commission has never officially confirmed the exact start date, but information sent to airports and other transport terminals indicated Sunday, October 6th as the likely start date.

However, now the British newspaper The Independent has reported that it has been delayed again, albeit only for a few weeks, with the likely new start date Sunday, November 10th.

At the time of writing the Commission has not released a firm start date, but The Local has requested further clarification.

The Independent also reports that the EU is considering allowing a ‘soft launch’ which will allow transport operators to be excused from collecting full biometric data on all travellers if there are significant delays at a border crossing point. The Local has asked the Commission for clarification on this point.

The system is causing a major headache for ports and rail terminals in the UK, with fears of long tailbacks at entry points such as the Port of Dover or the Eurostar St Pancras terminal. 

The problems are particularly acute at the UK-France border because of high travel volumes, the juxtaposed borders and the fact that Brits are no longer EU citizens and are therefore subject to EES checks.

READ ALSO Why is the UK-France border such a problem for EES checks? 

The EES system was designed prior to Brexit, when UK travellers were still EU citizens and would therefore not have been required to complete EES pre-registration.

You can read more about exactly how EES will affect different modes of transport on the links below;

The first time that passengers cross an external EU/Schengen zone border after the introduction of the system they will be required to provide biometric data including facial scans and fingerprints.

These must be collected on site, and there are fears that the extra requirements will lead to long queues at border crossings.

The checks only apply to non-EU citizens, while non-EU citizens who are resident in an EU country are also exempt.

Find full details of the new system HERE.

Once EES is (finally) up and running it will be followed by another new system – ETIAS which will require tourists and short-stay visitors to the EU to pay €7 in advance and register for a visa waiver. Under 18s and over 70s are exempt from this payment – full details HERE.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Flights resume after global IT crash wreaks havoc

Planes were gradually taking off again Saturday after global airlines, banks and media were thrown into turmoil by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus programme.

Published: 21 July 2024 06:44 CEST
Flights resume after global IT crash wreaks havoc

Passenger crowds had swelled at airports on Friday as dozens of flights were cancelled after an update to a programme operating on Microsoft Windows crashed systems worldwide.

By Saturday, officials said the situation had returned virtually to normal in airports across Germany and France, as Paris prepared to welcome millions for the Olympic Games starting on Friday.

Multiple US airlines and airports across Asia said they had resumed operations, with check-in services restored in Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand, and mostly back to normal in India, Indonesia and at Singapore’s Changi Airport as of Saturday afternoon.

CrowdStrike apologises

Microsoft estimated Saturday that 8.5 million Windows devices were affected in the global IT crash, adding that the number amounted to less than one percent of all Windows machines.

READ ALSO: Air passengers ‘in limbo’ as global IT crash grounds flights

“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services”, it said.

Microsoft said the issue began at 1900 GMT on Thursday, affecting Windows users running the CrowdStrike Falcon cybersecurity software.

In a Saturday blog post, CrowdStrike said it had released an update on Thursday night that had caused a system crash and the infamous “blue screen of death” fatal error message.

CrowdStrike said it had rolled out a fix for the problem, and the company’s boss, George Kurtz, told US news channel CNBC he wanted to “personally apologise to every organisation, every group and every person who has been impacted”.

The company also said it could take a few days for things to fully get back to normal.

Britain’s National Health Service was hobbled by the crash on Friday, preventing doctors from accessing patient records and booking appointments.

A “majority of systems… are now coming back online in most areas, however they are still running slightly slower than usual”, an NHS spokesperson said, warning of disruption continuing into next week.

READ MORE: Global IT glitch starts to cause travel chaos in Spain

Media companies were also hit, with Britain’s Sky News saying the glitch had ended its Friday morning news broadcasts. Australia’s ABC also reported major difficulties.

Australian, British and German authorities warned of an increase in scam and phishing attempts following the outage, including people offering to help reboot computers and asking for personal information or credit card details.

Banks in Kenya and Ukraine reported issues with their digital services, some mobile phone carriers were disrupted and customer services in a number of companies went down.

“The scale of this outage is unprecedented, and will no doubt go down in history,” said Junade Ali of Britain’s Institution of Engineering and Technology, adding that the last incident approaching the same scale was in 2017.

Flight chaos

While some airports halted all flights, in others airline staff resorted to manual check-ins for passengers, leading to long lines and frustrated travellers.

Thousands of US flights were grounded, although airlines later said they were re-establishing their services and working through the backlog.

A senior US administration official said Friday that “our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains”.

India’s largest airline Indigo said Saturday that operations had been “resolved”, adding in a statement on X that the process of resuming normal operations would “extend into the weekend”.

Low-cost carrier AirAsia said it was still trying to get back online and had been “working around the clock towards recovering its departure control systems”.

Chinese state media said Beijing’s airports had not been affected.

‘Common cause’

Companies were left patching up their systems and trying to assess the damage, even as officials tried to tamp down panic by ruling out foul play.

According to CrowdStrike’s Saturday blog, the issue was “not the result of or related to a cyberattack”.

Although CrowdStrike had rolled out a fix, many experts questioned the ease of such a process.

“While experienced users can implement the workaround, expecting millions to do so is impractical,” said Oli Buckley, a professor at Britain’s Loughborough University.

Other experts said the incident should prompt a widespread reconsideration of how reliant societies are on a handful of tech companies.

“We need to be aware that such software can be a common cause of failure for multiple systems at the same time,” said John McDermid, a professor at York University in Britain.

Infrastructure should be designed “to be resilient against such common cause problems”, he added.

For more detailed country specific information, head to the homepage for The Local France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway or Denmark.

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