"Introduced on October 12th after years of delay, the EES requires EU travellers entering Europe's Schengen open-borders zone to register personal data and provide biometric information at the first border crossing. Self-service kiosks are deployed at airports for that purpose, with information also checked by border guards. The data will be held in digital form in an EU-wide database. This will gradually replace the manual stamping of passports and should make it easier to identify overstayers or flag security issues."
"But issues with the IT infrastructure led to many delays in the launch of the system. After several postponements, it was decided to introduce the EES gradually over six months, with not all border crossing points going live at the same time, or not collecting full information, in a bid to address emerging issues at specific locations. Since the launch, however, major queues were reported at several airports."
"The progressive scaling‑up of the registration and capture of biometric data from third country nationals entering the Schengen area has resulted in border control processing times at airports increasing by up to 70 per cent, with waiting times of up to 3 hours at peak traffic periods"
Airport Council International Europe called for an urgent review of the EU Entry/Exit System (EES) because operational problems are causing major delays that could affect the holiday season. The EES is active across Schengen countries and some non-EU states and requires travellers to register personal data and biometric information at first border crossings using kiosks and border guards. Data will be stored in a central EU database to replace passport stamping and help detect overstayers and security issues. IT infrastructure problems delayed launch and forced a gradual roll-out; airports reported up to 70% longer processing times and waits up to three hours, prompting calls for additional flexibility if issues persist into January.
Read at The Local France
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