Dear Mr. Danielyan,

You wrote on 2nd June 2010 requesting information pertaining to the digital passport gates at London Gatwick Airport. For clarification, they are called the ePassport Gates and are currently only available in the North terminal. The response is below, and your questions are listed for ease of reference. Your request has been handled as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

“For the latest available reporting period for the London Gatwick airport:

a) how many persons have attempted to pass through the digital passport gates.

b) how many persons have successfully entered the UK via the digital passport gates without intervention by UKBA staff.

c) how many persons have successfully entered the UK via the digital passport gates with intervention by UKBA staff.

d) how many persons have attempted but failed to enter the UK via digital passport gates without intervention by UKBA staff despite holding valid digital passports.

e) how many persons of any nationality have attempted to enter the UK via digital passport gates but were stopped, detained or arrested.”

In relation to question b), the total number of transactions through the gates since the trial began in August 2009 up to 30th May 2010 is 159,924. Transactions are every time a passport is recognised by the system, and not every time a passenger passes through the gates.

We are unable to provide you with the information in questions a),c), d)and e). Although the system is independently tested the specific data requested is not available. The UK Border Agency is not obliged to comply with any information request where the prescribed costs of supplying you with the information exceed £600. The £600 limit is based on work being carried out at a rate of £25 per hour, which equates to 3½ days work per request. Prescribed costs include those which cover the cost of locating and retrieving information, and preparing our response to you. They do not include considering whether any information is exempt from disclosure, overheads such as heating or lighting, or disbursements such as photocopying or postage.

We have estimated that to gather and analyse the data for these questions would involve extracting data from a variety of sources and then processing the information so that it can be properly analysed. The data would then to be analysed and we estimate that in total this work would take in excess of approximately five days of one person's time. This means that the cost of answering the remaining parts of your request would exceed the £600 limit and we are therefore unable to comply with it.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request.  Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the United Kingdom Border Agency sending a substantive reply to your original request and should be addressed to:

Information Access Policy Team

Freedom of Information Team
UK Border Agency
11th Floor - Short Corridor
Lunar House,

40 Wellesley Road
Croydon
CR9 2BY

During the independent review the department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely,

Dan Soutar

Assistant Director, Automation

UK Border Agency

Border Transformation Group