After a prolonged final period of semi-working Heathrow Airport's IRIS (Iris recognition Immigration System),nice recursive acronym, is to be switched off permanently next week.
For the regular traveller who had perfected the IRIS dance of "Move back a little", "Move forward a little" the automated immigration line straight out of Minority Report often saved a few minutes at the end of a long journey.
But I fully accept that it never really worked very well and a couple of times was ejected from the machine to go and show my valid passport to a nearby human, oh the humiliation !
From now on it will have to be the increasing long line in front of a human UK Border Agency official or the less sci-fi influenced e-passport gates which seem neither faster or more reliable than IRIS..
