Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers a speech on welfare reform during a press conference at the Centre for Social Justice as part of a visit of local businesses, in central London, on April 19, 2024. – The British government wants to review the social assistance system to fight in particular against what it calls “the culture of sick leave”, while the number of people who do not work for health reasons is reaching new heights. (Photo by Yui Mok / POOL / AFP)
The British government on Wednesday ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of a nationwide e-gate outage at a number of airports that caused long delays for passengers.
The electronic gates which scan passports and use facial recognition went down shortly before 8:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Tuesday but were up and running again shortly after midnight (2300 GMT Tuesday).
“At no point was border security compromised and there is no indication of malicious cyber activity,” the Home Office said in a statement.
READ ALSO: UK regulator demands tech firms shield children from harmful content
Earlier on Tuesday, the government said it could not rule out state involvement in a mass cyberattack on the personal details of armed force personnel, with some lawmakers blaming China.
Beijing denied that it was behind the hack on a contractor’s payroll system used by the defence ministry containing the names and bank details of up to 272,000 British service personnel.
Airports including London Heathrow, London Luton, Edinburgh and Manchester saw severe delays, as Border Force officials had to manually check all passports.
Hundreds of passengers queued for over an hour at passport control at London Luton airport, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.
Travel disruptions were reported just two weeks earlier when the same e-gate technology experienced glitches at several airports.
Rail passengers also faced delays as train drivers across services went on strike on Wednesday in a long-running pay dispute.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Why are you flagging this comment?
I disagree with this user
Targeted harassment - posted harassing comments or discussions targeting me, or encouraged others to do so
Spam - posted spam comments or discussions
Inappropriate profile - profile contains inappropriate images or text
Threatening content - posted directly threatening content
Private information - posted someone else''s personally identifiable information
Before flagging, please keep in mind that Disqus does not moderate communities. Your username will be shown to the moderator, so you should only flag this comment for one of the reasons listed above.
We will review and take appropriate action.
Get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox every day of the week. Stay informed with the Guardians leading coverage of Nigerian and world news, business, technology and sports.
Follow Us