British holidaymakers heading to the European Union this summer are being warned of ‘not bearable’ delays at border controls, as new biometric checks threaten to snarl up airports. The European Commission has admitted that the rollout of the Entry/Exit System (EES) – a digital frontier that will log non-EU travellers’ fingerprints and facial scans – risks creating gridlock during peak travel months.
This is, on paper, a sensible upgrade: a system designed to tighten security, track overstayers, and speed up data sharing between member states. In practice, it is a logistical time bomb. The EES will require every non-EU passenger to pause at an automated kiosk or an officer’s booth for biometric enrolment on first entry, and then for verification on subsequent trips. At busy airports like Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle, or Madrid-Barajas, that extra 30 seconds per passenger multiplies into hours of queue time when multiplied by thousands of travellers per hour.
‘The delays will be significant, especially during the summer rush,’ said a senior EU official familiar with the testing. ‘We are asking member states to prepare, but many are still not ready.’ The problem is not the technology itself – it is the user experience of society. We have built a system that treats every border crossing as a potential security incident, and in doing so, we have forgotten that airports are not just control points but spaces where millions of people move with differing levels of patience, stress, and time sensitivity.
For British travellers, the pain is acute. Post-Brexit, UK passport holders are now third-country nationals in the EU, subject to the full suite of non-EU checks. The EES will be mandatory for all Britons entering the Schengen Area, adding a layer of friction that did not exist when the UK was a member state. The European Commission insists the system will eventually be faster than manual stamping, but the initial rollout will be anything but smooth.
‘My worry is that we are creating a digital barrier that harms the very freedom of movement the EU claims to cherish,’ said Julian Vane, a technology ethicist and former Silicon Valley product lead. ‘The EES is a classic case of optimising for security metrics while ignoring the human cost. We have substituted physical stamps with data points, but the queue remains. Worse, the data is stored centrally, creating a honey pot for hackers. One breach and every British traveller’s biometric profile is exposed.’
Vane raises a valid point about digital sovereignty. The EES database will hold the fingerprints and facial images of every non-EU visitor, a treasure trove for cybercriminals. The EU has promised robust encryption, but history suggests that large-scale identity systems are vulnerable. This is not technophobia – it is a realistic assessment of attack surfaces.
‘We are also seeing a failure of imagination,’ Vane continued. ‘Why not use decentralised identity verification via smartphones? Why force every passenger to touch a shared kiosk screen when we have contactless technology? The answer is bureaucratic inertia: the EU designed a system that works for governments, not for people.’
Meanwhile, the British government has issued travel advisories urging passengers to arrive at least three hours before flights to EU destinations, and to ensure their passports are valid for at least six months. Airlines are bracing for chaos, with some warning that delays could cascade into missed connections and stranded families.
‘This is not just about queues,’ added Vane. ‘It is about the erosion of the very idea of frictionless travel. We are moving towards a world where every border crossing is a transaction, a data exchange, a moment of suspicion. That is a profoundly dystopian vision for a continent that once championed openness.’
The EES is scheduled to go live later this year, but the EU is already facing pressure to delay. Whether it comes in summer or autumn, one thing is clear: British travellers should pack their patience along with their sunscreen.
