UK government decided that Australians can use their e-passport gates, which means, getting through arrivals at Heathrow faster in the near future.
Electronic gates at Heathrow and other airports are currently only available to European passport holders, however from next year, they will open up to visitors from Australia, US, Canada, New Zealand and Japan.
In high season, non-European visitors spent over 2 hours waiting in immigration queues. It will be great news for Australian travellers who have previously endured long queues (apart from families with young children, who cannot use the automated gates, and dual nationals who have already been able to switch to their UK passports).The gates use facial recognition technology to compare the passenger's face to a digital image recorded in their passport.