Photos: Checking your digits, irises at the airport

Instead of the passenger's boarding pass being manually inspected before entering the security check area, an automated gate scans the right index finger and the boarding pass--and opens the gate if the two match.

While the British Airports Authority claims the system could help passengers avoid long queues at the airport, they still have to queue up with everyone else at the usual security check airport bottleneck.

An automated barrier also reverifies the identity of the passenger with a fingerprint scanner at the boarding gate.

One aim of the trial is to test the feasibility of advanced passenger screening in the U.K., where once a passenger is checked in, they are cross-referenced against various national and international intelligence, immigration and terror "watch lists" before being allowed to board a flight to or from the U.K.