The Associated Press

LONDON — Britain began testing face-recognition technology Tuesday at Manchester airport as part of a high-tech effort to better control its borders.

The machines scan passport photos and compared them with biometric data contained in microchips. The technology can only be used with U.K. and European Union citizens who have new microchipped passports.

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The technology already is in use in Portugal, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia and could be expanded to other British airports if successful, the U.K. Border Agency said.

The trial is part of Britain's 1.2 billion-pound (US$2.2 billion) e-Borders program, which already has screened some 50 million passengers and produced 2,000 arrests.

The e-Borders program aims to count every person coming into and leaving Britain, and checking them against immigration and security watch lists, by 2014.

"The British public rightly expect our borders to protect the national interest, tackling immigration crime, smuggling and tax fraud," said Border and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne.

He said the staff of 9,000, working alongside 3,000 police at Britain's borders, has had "large-scale success," seizing millions of pounds worth of illegal drugs, weapons, and stopping tens of thousands of coming into the U.K. illegally.

Read more: http://ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/technology/eborders/