Olympic Accreditation Card should act as a visa waiver for Games Family Members. This – in effect – meant that some 20,000 athletes, officials and media from visa countries could come to the Games without going through our visa and biometric checks. In order to maintain security, we took powers to enable our Border Officers to capture biometrics from visa national Games Family Members upon arrival at the UK Border. We also set ourselves a target to travel the world in search of visa delegations, inviting them to provide us with biometrics voluntarily before they came here. This was another huge success and we surpassed our wildest expectations, capturing in excess of 16,000 sets of biometrics abroad. This all contributed to the smooth arrivals experience at Heathrow whilst maintaining the highest levels of security.”
So what has the UK learned from all this? Smith is keen to capture the benefits of the UKBA Olympic Programme to assist the Department and other host countries in the future. “We have achieved a lot over the past few years and it would be a shame
to see it go to waste” he says. “After all, the Olympics should be all about legacy and I am sure that will be the case in East London. For us it is about revisiting the successes of the Olympic arrivals project to see what we can do to deliver a good passenger experience whilst maintaining high levels of security and assurance in future. A lot of that is about aligning the right resource to arrivals schedules, and working much more in tandem with port operators to achieve mutual benefits. Technology will play an important role, and we have learned a lot about the capability of our electronic gates. We have developed a much more flexible, trained and equipped contingency workforce, capable of rapid deployment to the UK Border during critical incidents and times of extreme pressure.” “We have a static and mobile biometric capture facility both at the UK Border and overseas, available for use in other security applications. Our Olympic Clearing House provides an excellent foundation for future data matching and warning systems development. We have developed and implemented the most secure
accreditation card in the history of the Olympics for the benefit of future hosts and organising committees. This – coupled with our enforcement and identity outreach programme at venues – has ensured that only those properly entitled to gain access do so, and risks of security breaches are minimised.” “But most of all, we have proved to the world that we are capable of building Programmes from scratch to meet the toughest of challenges, and delivering outcomes that the country can be proud of. We do not seek the media spotlight – that is for our Olympic partners and our athletes, who have just put on the greatest show on earth. But we do take great pride in having played our part in delivering the Games – and quietly silencing one or two of our critics along the way!”
Tony Smith is an accredited Programme sponsor and NPIA level 3 qualified Gold Commander. He is a Senior Director in the UK Border Force, Home Office. Matthew Finn is Managing Director of AUGMENTIQ.
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August 2012 Aviationsecurityinternational
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