The EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) has entered a new phase. As ID Tech informs, starting on September 7, European border authorities can no longer temporarily suspend biometric registration when technical problems or excessive traffic create long queues.
During the progressive rollout, Articles 7(3) and 7(4) of Regulation (EU) 2025/1534 allowed member states to partially or fully suspend EES operations when strictly necessary. A partial suspension could include temporarily stopping the collection of fingerprints and facial images. Those provisions have now expired, meaning full EES checks must continue even when border crossings are under significant pressure.
The change comes as airports and travel organizations continue to raise concerns about processing times. According to IATA, a passport check that previously took around 20–25 seconds now takes about 90 seconds under EES. Separate data cited by ID Tech showed average waits at Frankfurt reaching 120 minutes in July, while Munich increased from 31 to 60 minutes and maximum waits in Amsterdam rose from 80 to 120 minutes.
What could this mean for businesses?
The change highlights an important point about biometric systems: trust in the result depends on the resilience of the entire operational workflow, not just the accuracy of the underlying technology.
At a border crossing, biometric checks operate within a much larger environment. Staffing levels, physical bottlenecks, the availability of kiosks and automated controls, passenger volumes, and the ability of surrounding systems to handle peak demand can all affect how well the process works in practice.
“The industry often talks about biometric performance as if it were purely a question of algorithmic accuracy. But even a highly accurate algorithm cannot compensate for an overwhelmed checkpoint.
A reliable biometric match is only one part of a successful identity check. The workflow around it also needs to remain stable under pressure. When operational friction becomes severe, it can increase the risk of delays, inconsistent processes, and pressure on staff to find shortcuts.
High-assurance biometric checks depend on much more than the matching algorithm. Infrastructure, staffing, queue management, passenger flow, and the availability of automated controls all contribute to whether the system can perform reliably at scale.”
– Henry Patishman, Executive Vice President of Identity Verification Solutions at Regula
The real test is performance at scale
The real question is not “Can the biometric system identify travelers?” It is this: “Can the entire operational workflow sustain biometric identification at scale, under peak load, without degrading trust or safety?”
The end of the temporary suspension mechanism makes this particularly important. Border authorities now have less flexibility to reduce biometric processing when traffic becomes excessive, putting greater pressure on the surrounding infrastructure and processes to keep full EES checks running.
For border agencies, this puts several operational priorities into sharper focus: resilient workflows, pre-enrolment and automation with robust fallback paths, staffing models designed around biometric throughput, and continuous monitoring of operational as well as identity risks.
“Biometric systems do not operate in isolation. Even strong biometric technology can fall short if the workflow around it cannot sustain the required load.
This is a reminder that identity assurance is not only a technical challenge; it is an operational one. Trust in the outcome depends on the stability of the entire chain, from the moment a traveler enters the queue to the moment their identity is verified and a decision is made.”
– Henry Patishman, Executive Vice President of Identity Verification Solutions at Regula
Read more: See how automated passenger data collection and identity verification can help keep passenger processing efficient as requirements grow.
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