MEMBERS of Britain’s 5,000-strong border force are to boycott newly installed “passport control robots” at airports after the security services expressed fears they would not stop terrorists entering the country.

The boycott follows an admission by senior UK Border Agency officials last month that the intelligence services and police doubt the viability of the facial recognition and passport-checking machines, which aim to automate the job of passport control officers.

Ministers want the “robots” to replace most frontline airport immigration officers over the next five years. The disclosure is a blow to Gordon Brown, who last year trumpeted plans to improve border security with the so-called e-borders scheme.

As well as improving security, ministers hoped the robots would reduce passenger congestion. The agency says the machines would take 13-15 seconds per passenger, while a human would take 20 seconds.

This weekend, critics said the machines may harm border security. Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said:“Again we see the government’soverreliance on technology is putting the security of the public at risk. They should answer our calls to establish a dedicated UK border police to properly secure our borders.”

The Home Office introduced 11 machines on a pilot basis at Stansted and Manchester airports last month. The walk-in machines are designed for passengers carrying the new biometric passports. They aim to check passports automatically and take instant photographs of the holder, which are then electronically matched against the digital pictures in their documents.

If a passport is not authenticated by the computer checks or the name triggers a warning when checked against police and MI5 databases, the gate will not open and the passenger will be redirected to staffed desks.

The security service fears were disclosed by Gary Murphy, the agency’s head of

operational design and development, responsible for introducing the machines.

Challenged by officials from the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) about their reliability, he and a colleague said there were doubts. A note of a meeting with Murphy states: “The critical success factors of the trial are as follows: integrity of control. Yet when asked, they admit the security services are concerned about this.”

Fujitsu, the machines’ manufacturer, says they have a failure rate of three in 10,000. However, four years ago the Home Office ran trials with similar equipment and found that facial recognition failed 31% of the time.

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