Last year, when I flew to London, it took me 57 minutes to clear passport control. Three months ago, it took me 57 seconds.

Heathrow and Gatwick have installed “eGates”. And it’s all based on facial recognition.

You stand at a turnstile, the camera reads your eyes, and the gate opens.

In the US, CLEAR — a private service partnered with a number of airlines — has been doing this at TSA security checkpoints for a number of years, and now the TSA is experimenting with facial recognition technology.

It saves significant processing time per passenger. And the additional good news is that 70% of global airlines are expected to use biometric identification by 2026.

And 90% of all airports are actively investing in the technology.