Today, in hour of the opening of Terminal 5 Thiefrow, I was going to award BAA my prestigious "Prats of The Week" Award, for their truly appalling scheme to fingerprint everyone (including domestic travellers) at Terminal 5 Thiefrow.
I now have to state publicly, and on the record, that this award would have been a grave mistake.
I formally and unreservedly apologise to BAA for almost besmirching their "fine" name, by thinking of giving them this award, and herewith and immediately withdraw the award.
What?!!!!!! I hear you ejaculate (can I say ejaculate here?).
Have you lost your cajones Ken?
Fear not loyal readers and anti Nannyers everywhere, I have not lost my cajones. BAA are in fact to be awarded my ultra prestigious "Knobheads of The Year" Award.
For why?
Well, it seems that their idiotic and badly thought through scheme to fingerprint everyone at Thiefrow Terminal 5, which is being investigated by the Information Commissioner's Orifice (ICO) as it is illegal, has been put on hold.
A spokesman for BAA slimed:
"Following a meeting with all relevant parties, including the Information Commissioner and the Border and Immigration Agency, the introduction of fingerprinting for domestic passengers and international passengers transferring on to domestic flights at Heathrow will be temporarily delayed."
BAA said that it will hold further talks with both the Information Commissioner and the Border and Immigration Agency before deciding its next move.
For the time being instead of leaving a fingerprint before passing through security, passengers will be photographed.
BE WARNED
This measure is only "on hold", BAA have spent a lot of money on installing the fingerprint scanners and are as keen as mustard to use them; they will try every trick in the book to implement this.
Here's why thier scheme is a load of old bollocks:
- BAA are shite, and regularly manage to screw up simple tasks such as baggage handling. The effective, efficient and secure control of personal data such as prints is way beyond their capabilities
- BAA are on the point of bankruptcy, what happens to this system when they collapse?
- The security services will of course take these details, no matter what BAA say
- This will add to the delays and frustrations of the hapless passengers who have to endure Heathrow's primitive facilities (note Terminal 5's design was buggered about and ruined, because BAA couldn't afford to build the original design)
- There is no need to fingerprint domestic passengers, this could be done purely for international and transit passengers at their point of arrival (even if there really is a security need for prints...which I doubt)
- The UK is the only country in the world that is going to fingerprint domestic passengers. Why?
- They will photograph everyone anyway, the prints are not needed
Feel free to tell them that they have won, via this email address: corporateresponsibility@baa.com
They had better hurry to pick up the award, given their appalling gearing levels BAA are not going to be around for much longer!
BAA well deserving "Knobheads of The Year"!
Although I haven't had the opportunity to fly for a while, at least whatever its other faults my local airport (non-BAA Liverpool John Lennon) doesn't implement this sort of nonsense. Surely the answer is to if at all possible, boycott Theifrow.
ReplyDeleteWhy be phtographed going about lawful travel anyway? Will BAA require those of a 'certain religion'to remove their all enshrouding bin bags? Doubt it. Boycott Terminal 5 and British Airways until they get the message that as a free people we can travel freely without hinderance beyond the required passport controls.
ReplyDeleteThey probably already scavenge all drinking cups and so on from the bins and take your DNA covertly from them...
ReplyDeleteOh, BTW, Jim, the charming old Spanish word is spelt "cojones", not "cajones".
big al,
ReplyDeleteyou are, of course, talking ballocks!
I hate to keep on extolling the virtue of the Turkish way of things but, here in Ankara (and Istanbul etc.), everybody entering any airport buildings must go through a full-scale security check - even if they've only come to say bye-bye to a relative. Nobody gets to the departure or transit areas without another check and the transit area is separate to the internal flight area. Because the whole operation is so well-organised, it is quick, relatively painless and leaves one feeling, well, secure.
ReplyDeleteWere BAA to do this at Thiefrow5, then they wouldn't have to worry about miscreants slipping transit passengers the odd explosive device; this means they could get off everybody's backs, everyone would be relaxed and BA could flog off their fingerprinting stuff to the local Parish Council for redeployment on dustbins or smoking licences or pub entrance passes or whatever.
Sounds like BAA and BA had a really fun first day with T5.
ReplyDeleteIf the reports I have read are anything like the truth it would surely go down as a event of unprecedented incompetence.
What a wonderful confirmation of the UK's declining capabilities - or can we blame the Spaniards for underfunding or some other externals for coming here to build the thing and then screwing up?
Any American companies involved? Halliburton for example?
Of course if they had fingerprinted the travellers it would have given them a reasonable way to identify which bags belonged to which traveller if they ever attempt to re-unite them.
Grant