[Tallianar]

I don't have a full answer but what I observed is that there is always someone that is nearby and "in control".

The base I think works like this:

- you scan the passport

- you look at the camera

- your passport details & photo are sent to the control room with your live feed

- a guy looks at everything those details plus your immigration history and other info

- same guy decides to let you in or send you to a desk

This was particularly obvious in the old Gibraltar border where you could easily be the only person going through and so the agent had to do the routine just to let you pass.

[danpalmer]

Yeah this is pretty much my assumption. I would imagine that the person doing the judging may not be on site as it's probably cheaper and easier to have a bigger workforce in one office, flex the people in shifts, load balance across all ports with the gates, etc.

I do wonder how much is automated. For example, is the gate fully automated in calculating a risk score and then referring you to a border agent if above a threshold? Is a person looking at the details in realtime to decide that, or are they just doing facial recognition, or are they only involved when the gates fail.