As if the overnight flight wasn’t tough enough…
Good morning, what’s the purpose of your visit? Perhaps it was the 30” of legroom in front of you, or the sleeping pills to kill the noise from the jet engines, but travelers just aren’t known to be at their best after an overnight flight – and soon it may cost them. Three European countries are trialling futuristic, borderline idiotic lie detector tests, aimed at sniffing out travelers who appear untrustworthy at immigration checkpoints. Since this is effectively everyone’s worst collective nightmare, here’s everything you need to know…
iBorderCtrl is not in fact a way to quickly close all your computer windows, but instead a new piece of software aimed at making your border process a living nightmare. Hungary, Latvia and Greece are each trialling the new software to identify travelers the computer deems potentially untrustworthy. Yes, the robots have officially won.
When travelers arrive from outside the European Union, they’ll need to consent to iBorderCtrl. A “computer animated border guard” will appear on a screen and ask questions, while answers are analyzed via artificial intelligence. If the machines virtual border guard deems your expressions, body language or answers to be dubious, a real life guard will step in. These measures are being introduced in addition to standard border checks. According to USA Today, the more the machine doubts you, the more questions it will ask. Pardon us, while we break out in hives.
In devastating news, this project is backed by the European Union, and will begin in airports this month. If initial immigration trials in Hungary, Latvia and Greece prove successful, the service will expand to other Euro airport borders. A Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) study found the AI machines to contain bias and highly inaccurate results. Nonetheless, €4.5million has been invested in the project and with the aim of reducing border congestion, it’s sure to have fans. Just probably not any that actually travel.
The company selling this to the airports probably started business selling bomb detection diving rods to the Iraqis.