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Aussies eligible for British e-passport gates

Australians travelling to Britain will soon be eligible to use its electronic passport gates.

Australians travelling to Britain will soon be eligible to use its electronic passport gates. Photo: Getty

Australians heading to Britain will soon spend less time in immigration queues with the introduction of electronic passport gates.

The British High Commission on Monday confirmed the self-use terminals are operational for visitors with a chipped passport.

“I’m delighted that Australian nationals will benefit from their use and have a smooth beginning to their visit to our country,” Home Secretary Sajid Javid said.

In 2017 about 1.4 million Australian passports were processed at British ports.

Travellers aged 12 to 18 must be accompanied by an adult to use the electronic gates, while those aged less than 11 will still need to speak with an immigration officer.

“The UK is already a world leader in automated passenger clearance, allowing more nationalities to use ePassport gates than anywhere else,” Monday’s statement read.

However, travellers to Britain will be hoping its e-passport gates escape the kind of technical hitch that affected thousands at Australia’s international airports in April.

That hours-long outage affected inbound and outbound passengers, with many of them complaining of queues that thousands deep.

-with AAP

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