For the last year or so, Eurostar has been quietly trialling iProov.me, otherwise known as SmartCheck, at London St Pancras.
It allows you bypass all queues at the terminal AND UK passport control. Despite the publicity circulated by Eurostar, which said that it was only accessible to Eurostar Premier and Carte Blanche / Etoile status customers, this was not true.
Anyone could use it, saving themselves a substantial wait at peak periods compared to the usual Eurostar Standard and Eurostar Plus queue times.
iProove.me will bite the dust on 13th February.
Whilst I am talking about iProov.me in the past tense below, you can still use it for the next three weeks if travelling on Eurostar.
What did iProov.me do?
iProov replaced UK passport control at St Pancras. It’s was like it didn’t exist.
It also replaced the pre-security ticket check.
How did iProov.me work?
You downloaded the iProov.me app onto your mobile phone. After doing this, you needed to do three things:
- take a picture of the photo page of your passport
- have the app ‘read’ the chip in your passport by holding your phone over the chip (you MUST have Bluetooth / NFC enabled)
- have the app make a scan of your face
That was it. You could then input the booking reference of your Eurostar tickets.
On the day of travel, you had to reconfirm your trip in the iProov app. On arrival at St Pancras, you headed down to the Eurostar Premier check-in lanes and, next to them, was a lane marked ‘Smart Check’:
You walked towards the sliding doors and they opened
That was it. Your entire British passport check was replaced by walking through a door. The doors opened because facial recognition cameras saw you approaching, scanned your face, matched it to your iProov.me profile, saw that your passport information has been approved and saw that you had a valid ticket.
There was literally nothing to do. You didn’t break your stride. You didn’t stop to look into a camera. You didn’t get a photograph taken. You didn’t scan or show anyone your ticket. You didn’t show any UK official your passport. You simply walked towards the door at your normal pace and it opened. You had cleared UK passport control.
It got better ….
Beyond the door was an exclusive security lane for iProov.me customers. You were virtually certain to have this all to yourself.
When I say ‘to yourself’ I mean there would be no-one ahead of you and no-one would enter behind you. iProov only got used every couple of minutes at best.
Once you had cleared security, there was another perk. A member of staff let you (made you, actually) push in at the front of the queue for French passport control.
Why is iProov.me going away?
Why is such an amazing service going away? Brexit, of course, is the answer.
Soon (well, probably 2026 now after more delays) it will be a requirement for you to be fingerprinted and photographed when entering the EU in a similar way to how it operates when you enter the United States. You will also have to answer four questions, such as how long you intend to stay.
Fresh photographs and fingerprints will only need to be submitted every three years (sooner if you replace your passport) but your photograph will need to be verified on every trip and the four questions answered.
St Pancras was not designed to handle the queues that will build up. When iProov.me is removed, the security lane that is freed up will become an additional priority lane for Eurostar Premier, Carte Blanche and Etoile members. Extra ePassport gates and passport control booths will be added.
This should minimise delays for premium passengers when the new EU Entry / Exit System finally launches.
The only mitigation for non-premum passengers is a plan to turn the Benugo cafe into a pre-registration area, with no-one allowed into the main queue until they can show EES registration. There will be an additional pre-registration area for Eurostar Premier customers opposite the check-in area where the Premier ticket office is currently located.
If you are travelling on Eurostar by 13th February, in any cabin, do give iProov.me a try. It’s the future – but, oddly, it is going away.