All language subtitles for The.Secret.Genius.of.Modern.Life.S02E01.Passport.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

That's me.

Do you ever stop to consider
just how lucky we are

to be completely surrounded by
genuine wonders of human ingenuity?

All of these super
clever bits of tech

designed just to make our lives
a little bit better.

The problem is...

...we're now so used
to these devices..

These are plug-ins?

...that we've forgotten to remember
how clever they are.

I'm Professor Hannah Fry

but you can think of me as your
extremely qualified tour guide...

Oh, my gosh, don't mess with me.
GUNSHOT

...to the secret genius
of everyday objects.

How do I get myself
in these situations?

In each episode, I'll take
one seemingly ordinary item...

...and I'L look at it...
Oh, yeah, there we go.

...in frankly obscene detail.

This tiny little bit is the thing
that makes your microwave work.

Meet the people
who helped make it...

We really like ears here.
We're kind of obsessed with them.

...and follow the
twisty-turny journey

through the history
of its invention.

FILM REEL: Here, carelessness
could bring instant tragedy.

And fire.
LOUD CRACK

This time, it's the passport.

Some of the most extraordinary
experiences of my life

are documented in here.

It's a record of
everywhere |I've been.

I actually have almost like
an emotional connection

to this little book.

So how did car crashes
in the 1900s...

The back isn't even scratched.

...World War I spy tactics...

FILM REEL: London in the
dark nights of wartime.

...and the hunt for a
19th-century serial killer

bring us the modern passport?

What was I thinking
with those eyebrows?

I mean...

So what does it take to make one of
the world's most secure documents?

I've come to the
top-secret facilities

of security company Thales.

It's very disconcerting.

So secret, in fact,

that there's just a disembodied
voice to greet me.

Why can't I see you?

You don't need to see me. Anonymity.

Anonymity - is that why?

From this
highly classified location

Thales can produce over six million
passports a year

for His Majesty's Passport Office.

Hi, Hannah. Hi. Welcome to Thales,
I'm Scott. Thank you.

That is Security Manager
Scott Etherington

and it's his job to make sure
that I don't pocket any...

...souvenirs.

Because you've got pockets
and we aim to have

a pocket less environment,
I'm going to have to have you

to wear a very fetching white coat.

Access to the factory
is through a high-tech door

that'll weigh me on the way in
and on the way out

just to make sure
I haven't pilfered anything.

Any attempt to steal, and the whole
building goes into full lockdown.

Here, five machines each process up
to 500 passports an hour -

adding personal details,
like your name and photo.

And, actually, we have one here.
A nice blue one for you.

Is there quite a big black market
for British passports?

I wouldn't be able to say so,
but I'd imagine, given that's

a British passport, there'd be some
demand to get hold of one. Yeah.

The British passport is first
and foremost most citizens'

primary source of ID.

Because not only does it allow you
to travel to other countries,

you can vote, you can open a bank
account, you can go to the pub.

Our job is to make the British
passport as fraud-proof as possible,

and we do that by adopting
a wide range of security techniques.

I'm going to tear apart
the UK passport

and look at four key components
designed to foil would-be forgers.

From the hologram...

...to the biometric chip.

But I'm going to start with
the latest innovation -

the practically indestructible...

...polycarbonate page.

So here we go.
HANNAH GASPS

It's blank! And this is the
polycarbonate data page,

the most important
part of your passport.

So this is just plastic?
Yes. But tough plastic?

Tough plastic. Yes.
Indestructible plastic?

Difficult-to-modify-or-change
plastic.

Mm, catchy!
You should use that.

Well, I might trademark it.

This super-strong plastic
is now used instead of paper

to store your personal details.

It's off on its journey.

Polycarbonate is one of the
toughest plastics around.

It's used in everything from
riot shields to aircraft windows.

But it's not the material alone
that makes these passports

so tamper-proof.

It may appear to be one sheet
of plastic, but it's actually not -

it's several layers actually fused
together through heat and pressure

to make ultimately one page,
but different layers.

Name, date of birth
and even the photo

are laser engraved onto the page.

Oh, yeah, look.
Oh, my gosh. Hah!

Notice anything familiar?
Yes, my face. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. That's really strange.
SHE CHUCKLES

For data security, Scott won't
let us film a real passport.

And so they're making
a sample one just for me.

You know how everyone always hates
passport photographs of themselves?

Cos it's the most serious one
you'll ever have.

It is the most serious one
you'll ever have.

Using layers of polycarbonate
makes the page stronger,

but it also allows the laser
to do something rather special.

What is strange is that
it's really smooth. Yeah.

If you've engraved it,
it doesn't feel like an engraving.

No. So the engraving's actually
targeting specific layers

within the polycarbonate,
and that's why it appears so smooth.

You're engraving this in the
middle layers of the plastic... Yep.

...without touching the outside.

Can you peel apart these layers?
No, because of the way

they've been fused, it makes it
very difficult to peel it apart.

If you actually attempt to do it,
what'll end up happening is

you'll damage some of the security
features in place and then

it becomes evident that it's been
tampered with. It's very clever.

Am I allowed to keep this? No.

The polycarbonate page was
introduced to UK Passports in 2020 -

perfectly timed for the year

when we weren't allowed
to travel anywhere.

To understand why layers
of polycarbonate plastic

are so strong
and hard to penetrate...

...we need to head to the world
of military defence.

At this firing range, they
routinely test bulletproof glass.

This is armourer Sarah Davis...

whoa.

...and she wants to show me exactly
what this material can withstand.

I know where I'm going
in the apocalypse.

First job...
Oh, my gosh.

...choose your weapon.

Don't mess with me. OK?

The grenade launcher
might be overdoing it.

So I've picked one for you.

That little guy.
That's massive.

This rifle has a telescopic sight

that should make it a
bit easier for me to aim.

It's heavy. It is heavy.

You know what, though?
I'm absolutely nails.

Oh, wow.

I genuinely feel like I'm with
a real-life Lara Croft right now.

My target is this watermelon

protected by a piece
of bulletproof glass,

made from layers of glass
and polycarbonate plastic.

This weapon is live and has
five rounds of 9mm.

All right. I'm going in.

Right hand on the pistol grip.

Bring it up into the shoulder first.

That's it.

You want to hold your breath
when you're directly on the target.

Gently put your finger
on the trigger.

GUNSHOT
Yes!

GUNSHOT
Well done.

I'm now extremely out of breath for
how much I was holding my breath!

BOTH LAUGH

It's smashed up the glass.

I can't see any watermelon
on the floor.

Look at that.

The glass has stopped the bullet
in its tracks.

That is all down
to this super special sandwich

of glass and plastic.

You see, polycarbonate
is exceptionally good

at fusing onto other materials,

which is why our sandwich
stays together

even when hit by a speeding bullet.

Look, you can see
the layers really clearly.

The front layer of glass
slows the bullet down.

The first one - this strong,
thick panel of glass -

is smashed up like
almost powder in the middle.

And then the flexible polycarbonate
layer fused onto it

soaks up far more
of the bullet's energy.

Then a layer of polycarbonate
that's, like, absorbed it,

spread it out. Spreads it out.

By the time you get to the back

layer of glass,
there's almost nothing.

Those two materials -
glass and polycarbonate -

work in tandem to absorb
the energy of the bullet.

It's only possible because the two
are so well bonded together.

But polycarbonate also fuses
incredibly well to itself,

which is why the layers in your
passport are so impenetrable

and tamper-proof.

Can we shoot the watermelon anyway?
Oh, go on, then.

Nice.

GUNSHOT

Fused layers of polycarbonate...

...are the latest high-tech wizardry
aimed at foiling the fakes.

But to find out
where the idea came from,

we have to slam on the brakes

and reverse back 120 years

to the dawn of a dangerous
new pastime -

driving.

It's the early 1900s

and the popularity of the motorcar
is on the rise.

But so, too, are the
number of accidents.

Safety features like seat belts
are yet to be introduced.

And the glass used for windscreens

is the same type used
for windows in homes.

Any crash would send razor-sharp
shards in all directions,

leading to hundreds
of fatal injuries.

These kind of accidents,
they would often make headlines.

And then they caught
the attention of a French artist

who decided that he wanted to do
something about it.

His name was Edouard Benedictus,

and his inspiration had come
a few years earlier.

While he was working on his
latest masterpiece,

he accidentally dropped
a glass onto the floor.

But something peculiar happened.

GLASS DINGS

When he picked it up off the floor,
the glass had cracked

but it wasn't broken.

So he gave it a sniff...
SHE SNIFFS

...and realised that this glass
had previously contained

something called cellulose nitrite.

Cellulose nitrate was
used to make celluloid -

one of the first
semi-synthetic plastics.

Edouard had probably been using it
as a kind of lacquer

or varnish for his paintings.

And all of that had since
evaporated, leaving this very thin

film of plastic on the inside,
that crucially had allowed

the glass to hold its shape,

even once it hit the floor.

Edouard would later write
in his diary that the glass

appeared spangled
like bohemian crystal.

Seeing how a thin layer of plastic
could hold glass together -

even when dropped -
gave Edouard an idea.

What if he could
use the same technique

to make car windscreens safer?

Edouard's glass was actually made

of two thin sheets of glass

that were stuck together
using celluloid.

I'm going to use a slightly more
modern version - PVA glue.

Which essentially just
hardens into plastic.

Fusing these layers together,
that is called lamination,

and it's the same process that
happens between the layers

of polycarbonate
inside your passport.

The passport makers
use heat and pressure -

not PVA glue from
the kids' crafting cupboard -

but, you know, you get the idea!

I'm going to just leave this one to
dry, so give me half an hour or so.

CLOCK TICKS AND CHIMES

That's very good!

Right, so I've given it some time,
it's dried clear,

let's see what happens now.

Uneventful.

It's robust, I'll give it that.

Ooh, look at that!

So it has smashed but, because
the layers are fused together,

it's held its shape -

there haven't been shards
flying off in all directions.

It's actually quite beautiful.

Also a lot safer.

Edouard had created
the world's first safety glass.

He patented his design
and founded Triplex glass,

makers of a triple-layered
safety sandwich

of glass, plastic and glass.

FILM REEL: In the factories,
Ford workers were hard-pressed

to keep up with the flood
of orders for the new model.

In 1927, automobile
visionary Henry Ford

began using Triplex in his cars...

Henry Ford introduced something
brand-new - the Model A.

...and soon after, safety glass
became mandatory in all new cars -

drastically reducing
the number of deaths.

OK, I think I'm done.

You ready?

Do you like it?

Yeah, maybe I'll just stick
to the science from now on.

Around the same time that Edouard
was revolutionising car safety,

the modern passport
was taking shape.

You see, passports as we know them

didn't really exist
until the First World War.

Countries started using them
to enforce their borders,

and governments were so pleased
with their new system of control

that they kept passports
even after the war had ended.

In 1920, the League of Nations
standardised passport design

and the 32-page book
as we know it was born.

Passports from the 1920s,
they actually look quite similar

to the ones that we have now.

You've got your name,
your nationality,

your date of birth, signature,
and also your photograph.

But back then, there weren't any
standards about these photographs

so anything went, really.

This one's got an entire
family of people in it.

Now you have to remember
that passports,

depending on where you were born,

they're either this
great symbol of freedom,

or they're a reminder that parts
of the world are off limits to you.

And so as soon as these things
became mandatory,

it meant that some people could no
longer go where they wanted to go

and turned instead to forging them.

And that used to be quite easy.

You could just take off
one of these photographs

and replace it with one of your own.

So different nationalities, they
started experimenting with security

measures to make this
more difficult -

like here, you can see
these embossed seals.

And that makes it a
little bit more difficult to forge,

but definitely not impossible.

And so began a century-long tussle
between forgers and the governments.

FIM REEL: There are always
minute differences

obvious to the trained eye
which make detection possible.

In 1926, those ID photos became
standardised and harder to copy.

The form stayed more or less
the same until the 1970s,

when governments began using
untearable, toughed paper

for the ID page.

Still not tough enough
for the Fins, though -

who, in 1989,

were the first nation
to turn to layers of plastic.

First in drivers' licences,

and eight years later
in their passports.

Other nations followed and,
in 2020, polycarbonate plastic

became standard in
new British passports.

The see-through polycarbonate page
protects your personal details

while keeping them visible.

But our next component...

...is a sneaky one.

Hidden in the pages of your passport
are a dazzling array of patterns

and pictures that most of us
never get to see.

Carefully designed
to thwart the forgers,

they are printed in
invisible UV ink.

Hello.

Have you ever wondered what Border
Force are actually looking for

when they flick through
your passport?

Well, we're going to find out.

Thank you.

Because I am starting my first shift
as a Border Force officer...

Hi. Hello. Are you travelling
together? Yes. Yeah?

...with the help of Malcolm here.

Just looking through to see what
stamps she's got in her passport.

And get a stamp from us, as well.

Oooh!

Sorry, that wasn't very
Border Force of me, was it?

SHE WHISPERS: Can I do it?
Go on, then.

Roll forward. That's it.
You done it.

Thanks, that's my first one.
Thank you.

When you go to Border Force Officer
school, do they say,

"Oh, you've got to be really stern
and look like you mean business"?

No, there's no stern requirement.

Malcom has been securing
our borders for over 30 years,

so he knows a dodgy passport
when he sees one.

How often do you get a fraudulent
or a counterfeit passport?

Every month we get a certain number.

It's not a daily occurrence,

but it's more than
a weekly occurrence.

How can you be sure
that it's a real passport?

What kind of visual cues
are you looking for

inside the passport itself?

There are many things
that we would look at.

Do you want me to show you...?
Yes, I do. Yes!

Malcolm's not just looking
at your photo.

What he's really interested in
are the secret patterns

that are only revealed...

Oh, that's so pretty.

...under UV light.

Yeah, really pretty features
of the national flower symbols.

Even on this page there are many
intricate geometric patterns.

I mean, it completely comes alive.

So there's greens, there's reds,
there's blues,

there's all sorts of colours.

Amazing.

It's so strange to have something
that... You've never looked at.

...you know so well
and you've never seen it.

These patterns use an ink
that reflects normal light,

rendering them invisible.

But ultraviolet light is absorbed

and then re-emitted in a
wide-spectrum of visible colours.

Have you ever spotted a dodgy
passport because of the UV ink?

Yes, I have spotted documents
from simply putting them

under the light, that they do react
in a way that wasn't expected.

Is there a little bit of you

that is kind of impressed
by good counterfeits?

Yeah. Absolutely.
Really? Yeah, quite a lot.

I mean, it's not easy to make
a counterfeit document.

They're clear. Ah, hello.

Oh. Oh, hang on.
What's happened here?

My dog. Your dog? Your dog?

He was unhappy
I was leaving the country.

It hasn't damaged your passport,
though. No, he hasn't.

Covering the pages of a passport
with UV invisible ink

has made it easier to spot fakes.

But the story of how it got there
takes us on a journey...

...into the shadowy world
of espionage.

Invisible inks have been
used by spies for centuries.

But they're thought to have
really come into their own

during the First World War.

FILM REEL: In the dark nights
of wartime,

when victory hung in the balance,
roaming unchecked is a secret enemy.

Welcome to Spy School.

Lesson one is that it's all very
well collecting information

about your enemy, but you need to
make sure that information

reaches the place where
it will be most useful.

And you've got to do so in a way

that your message does
not get intercepted.

And that is where lemons
come into play,

because these things are extremely
good at hiding secret messages.

Freshly squeezed works best.

Simply write your dispatch
with a brush or quill.

Once it's dry,

it is completely invisible.

Lesson number two. Of course, if
you're sending through a blank sheet

of paper, it's going
to look a bit suspicious.

So I'm going to write something
ordinary between the lines.

Let's do a shopping List.

Eggs,

tomatoes...

Looks completely innocent.

Until...

...you hold it over a flame.

You know what? Maybe it is
time for a female James Bond.

SHE CHUCKLES
How clear is that?

British Intelligence used
this detection method

to try and intercept military
secrets being leaked by spies.

But it was a painstaking process.

And there was another problem.

Once you have revealed the message,
you can't undo it.

You can't return this back
to its previous invisible state.

And that means your enemy is going
to start to get suspicious

when they're not
receiving their letters.

The solution came when spy-catchers
noticed something peculiar

about their new-fangled lamps.

FILM REEL: The evacuated tube is
now sealed with a drop of mercury

on the inside to carry
the electronic discharge

through the tube.

Mercury-vapour bulbs
produce ultraviolet light.

It's usually blocked by a coating of
phosphor on the inside of the glass.

But if that coating was removed

it would allow some UV rays
to escape.

The spy-catchers realised
that the secret message

would be revealed under
the light from the lamps.

That is because lemon juice
fluoresces under UV.

So everything reflects light,
but there's a special compound

in lemon juice called a fluorophore

that grabs hold of UV light

and spits it out in
the visible wavelength -

in this case, in this
kind of silvery blue colour.

That fact that lemon fluoresces
made it way easier for spy-catchers

to intercept secret messages.

All they'd have to do is
turn on the UV, photograph it,

and then they could send
on the message

as though nothing had happened.

And it wasn't just lemon juice.

FILM REEL: This fluorescent
effect makes it possible

to read many secret
or hidden messages.

Milk, saliva - even urine - were
commonly used as invisible inks.

When we were researching
fluorescence, there was

this scientist who told us,
if you want the shock of your life,

you should take a
UV torch into a toilet.

Do you want to see?

Oh, my God!

What is that?

How do you...?

The discovery that invisible inks
weren't so invisible after all

meant that their usefulness as tools
for espionage went down the pan.

This is boys,
this is boys doing this.

But what was a loss for the spies

turned out to be a win
for the security services -

as they could use the same tactics
against forgers.

Boy. Did you ever see such
pretty pictures?

Scientists were able to
isolate the fluorophores

and, by the 1980s, they were turning
them into invisible UV inks

that couldn't be photocopied
and were difficult to reproduce.

Soon, invisible ink was being used
to secure everything

from banknotes to ID cards.

And by the late 1980s,

they were being used
in British passports.

Our next component is
a mesmerising blend

of art and physics
that's almost impossible to copy.

Aimed at stopping
forgers in their tracks -

it's the hologram.

If you take a look at the modern
British passport,

you will see
that over the photograph

there is this very pretty hologram

of a compass and a map of the UK,

and it glistens in the light -

sort of changes colour depending on
the angle that you're holding it at.

These rainbow-coloured pictures
bend the light in such a way

that it creates a kind of
three-dimensional image.

Sounds like magic, I know, but
it's child's play - I promise you.

I'm going to demonstrate
using some chocolate...

Brrrrr!

...and a couple of little assistants.

Do you want to make some
chocolate? Meeeeee!

All right, I've got some
instructions here.

150g of chocolate.

Right, double boil,
stirring well until it's melted.

And then let's go over here.

This plastic film is covered
in tiny hologram stamps.

They're made up of
microscopic ridges and grooves

that scatter light to
create glimmering colours.

So there's no - there's no ink here,
there's no dyes.

This is just playing with light.

And we're going to prove it.

Just as long as the chocolate
doesn't get snaffled first, that is!

All right, place the foil
with the sticker facing down.

Pour the glaze onto the foil

and spread it evenly

without touching the foil.

The tiny ridges and grooves
that form the hologram stamp

are being imprinted
onto the chocolate.

Two more. One and...two. Perfect.

Gently, gently. Gently.

Once set,
it's time to see if it worked.

Oh, my gosh.
HANNAH INHALES

whoa!

Can you see it? Yeah.

Some bite size physics coming up.

So our mini stamps have created
these teeny, tiny grooves

and ridges in the chocolate.

White light comes in, hits them,
and they bend and separate the light

into its constituent colours

to create this rather
delicious rainbow.

And voila - an edible hologram.

That is just light. Nothing's been
left behind on the chocolate.

It's just tiny little imprints
that let the light dance.

It's pretty, isn't it? Yeah.

I never ate a rainbow
chocolate before.

Holograms make a
brilliant security device

because they can be embossed
into millions of passports.

But only if you have the master.

And making that
is fiendishly complicated.

TV COMMENTARY: To make a hologram,
this is what you do.

Take a laser beam
and split it in two.

One half of the laser beam
shines onto our object

and then onto a photographic plate.

The other half bounces off a mirror
and onto the same plate.

The light-sensitive chemical
coating on the plate react

but, crucially, the beam bouncing
off the object overlaps

with the other half of the laser,

to form light and dark spots.

After a second or two's exposure,

the plate is developed
in the normal way.

And this is your master hologram.

To turn this into a ridged version,
like the one in my kitchen,

the pattern is etched onto another
plate and cast in metal,

to be pressed
into chocolate - or a passport.

This complex
art-form/security feature

has its origins back in 1947...

...when Hungarian physicist
and lover of statement eye wear

Dennis Gabor comes up
with the theory of holograms.

Sadly for Dennis, he's a bit
ahead of his time,

so it's not until the first laser
is built 13 years later

that they become a reality.

In 1963, American scientists
Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks

create the world's first
3D hologram of this toy train.

Others follow, and the
hologram's mysterious properties

stun the scientific world.

LOUD CRASH

TV COMMENTARY:
Left to pick up the pieces,

you'll notice something strange -

the whole image is still there.

In fact, every single piece
contains a full 3D image

but from a different point of view.

But holograms were tricky
and expensive to make

and no-one could quite figure
out a use for them.

It is theoretically possible to
have 3D television this way...

Yeah, that didn't happen.

It looked like the hologram was
destined to remain

just a scientific curiosity,
until...

...the age of psychedelia arrived,

and holography found
a new life with artists

looking to blow people's minds.

Holography is the natural extension

of photography
into three dimensions.

Even Salvador Dali got on board,

making this colourful hologram
of rocker Alice Cooper.

The early '80s saw
a major breakthrough

when scientists found a way
to mass-produce holograms.

Research is now under way to make
the holograms more quickly.

By making it into a stamp...

It's the first hologram
packaging of its kind.

...they could be embossed
into plastic,

or indeed, chocolate.

Suddenly, holograms
were everywhere...

The new Doctor Who record
with a hologram on the front.

...and they started being used
as a security feature...

what makes the new card so different
are its built-in security devices -

in particular, the hologram.

...in everything from bank notes
and credit cards to, er,

these things.

If it's got one of these badges
on it,

you can be sure
it's an original cassette.

So how did they get
into our passports?

Well, let's ask the man
who put them there.

Wow. I think this hologram
alone has helped prevent

a lot of fake passports
from being produced.

That is holographic artist
Inaki Beguiristain.

In 1998, his team were asked to
create the very first hologram

to be used in a British passport.

I haven't actually seen it
since then.

And this is the original metal cast.

It's quite something.

This hologram made passports more
secure for almost a decade,

until newer versions
were phased in from 2006.

Holograms are pretty
difficult to make.

They're even more difficult to copy.

And that's why, for document
security, they are perfect.

So today we're going to make
a hologram of a bunch of pencils.

Hologram-making requires some
fairly niche equipment.

This is an optical table,
is floating on air.

The idea is that it isolates
the holographic set-up

from the outside world.

This isolation is crucial.

Let's just say they
like things nice and still!

So if you get movement of more
than a tenth of the wavelength

of light, tiny, tiny movements
will cause a lot of problems.

Even the rumble of a passing truck
will essentially destroy the image.

Inaki splits the laser beam in two.

The beams are all aligned.

And we'll put the holographic plate
into the plate-holder.

The pattern from
the pencils is imprinted

into that coating on the plate.

You can see the plate going clear.

Here we have the finished hologram.

Look, absolutely nothing there.

Producing a security hologram for
passports is even more difficult...

...thanks in no small part
to the complex design.

It's one of the hardest holograms
I've ever made.

Because there are
so many features in there.

The first rule when designing
for the UK passport -

don't leave anyone out.

So you've got the rose, the thistle,
the daffodil and the shamrock.

It's designed to be relatively
easy to see under not-ideal

lighting conditions, so that a
passport inspector can very quickly

determine whether he considers it
to be potentially a fake.

It is a bit mind-boggling to be
thinking that, at some point,

you know, back in the early 2000s,
pretty much everybody

in the UK was going round with
a piece of my art in their pocket.

Since Inaki's first master, there
have been four more holograms

in the British passport -

each designed to be ever more
difficult to copy.

Our final component has forced
the forgers into the computer age.

It uses complex circuitry
to store a photo

and measurements of your face
as a means of identification.

This is the biometric chip.

All new British passports
are embedded with a microchip,

which allows you to enter the UK
through an electronic gate.

The chip itself is hidden between
the layers of polycarbonate.

There's a chip in the passport.

Teeny tiny thing.

The chip holds all the information
that's held on your passport.

That's Carol, by the way -

and, as a Border Force officer
monitoring the eGates at Stansted,

she has seen it all.

There was one instance where
I was checking the monitor,

and all of a sudden,
up pops a six-month-old baby.

And I looked up and the mother was
holding the baby up at the camera.

And I thought, really, seriously?

There's a good reason
why babies can't use eGates.

A camera scans your face.

It compares it
with your passport photo

and the picture stored on the chip.

Only when all three match
does it let you through.

It's checking on certain features
that never change,

such as your ears, your eyes,
your nose, lips, cheek, jawbones.

Yeah, cos I guess your skull
doesn't change. No, no.

The problem with babies
is that they do change.

This chip is meant to speed up
the process for adult passengers.

Well, most adults.

There was an incident where
I had a passenger in front of me

at the eGates, and he was clearly
struggling with his passport.

So I said to him,
"Excuse me. Biodata page.

"Face down. Face down."

And he must have only heard the face
down because he proceeded

to plonk his face onto the scanner.

Epic face plants aside,

biometric passports
are also harder to fake

because built-in encryption prevents
that chip from being modified.

The aim is that, eventually, most
travellers will use eGates

so their photos get checked by
a computer instead of a human.

Which, as it turns out,
is probably no bad thing.

I'm going to let you in on a little
secret about our good friend,

the border guard. But first we're
going to play a little game.

So on this screen, two images
are going to appear.

They might be the same person,
or they might be different people,

and my job - and yours,
by extension - is to guess

whether they're the same person
or different people.

This test mimics the job
of passport control,

checking that a photo
is of the same person

that's standing in front of them.

OK, level one, I think
these are different people.

Two, hmm...

Same person.

Three.

Same person.

Four, different people.

OK, I think you get the gist.

Can we speed it up a bit?

Thank you.

How did I do?

You got 13% wrong.

I tried really hard, I'm really
proud of that. Thank you.

13% is actually quite good.

And they're not the only ones.

A few years ago, some researchers
from the University of York,

they wanted to see how good
border guards were at this game.

And they found that, on average,

border guards were no better
than the general public.

And the strangest thing
is that it doesn't matter

how experienced a border guard
is or how much they practise,

that number is kind of immovable.

People just aren't
naturally very good

at recognising unfamiliar faces.

And when you think about how many
hundreds of thousands of people

travel through Heathrow every month,

16% of them is quite a big number.

That's my professional opinion
as a mathematician.

The success of eGates is all thanks
to computer facial recognition.

In 2014, computers powered
by artificial intelligence

began to outperform humans
at recognising faces.

Nowadays, there's no contest.

Machines can now use biometrics
to correctly match

millions of faces
with near-perfect accuracy.

But it all began in 1879
in a police station in Paris.

All right, this isn't Paris,
it's central London.

But this is an old police station.

What crimes do you reckon
they've committed?

Well, the biggest crime
was theft in the 19th century,

so probably a lot of them
were thieves.

That's crime historian
Angela Buckley.

This guy's committed a crime
against facial hair.

Yeah, hasn't he! Absolutely.

In the late 19th century,

policing suffered
from a fundamental problem.

Well, it was extremely easy
to evade the law in the 1800s

because you could do
all sorts of things.

You could change your name -
which people did repeatedly.

You could change your appearance.

In fact, there were quite a lot of
what they called travelling thieves,

travelling round the country,
changing their appearance,

giving different names,

and they were always
one step ahead of the police.

If you were arrested,
you could just go in and say,

"Oh, no, sorry. I know you
think my name's Hannah Fry,

"but actually my name is
Jim Baggins."

Totally, and in fact, you'd use
six or seven different aliases.

Crime rates were rising
because there was no reliable way

to know if someone
was a repeat offender.

Then, in 1879,
one man set out to fix it.

Alphonse Bertillon.

He joined the Paris police force
as a records clerk,

and it was his job to collate
all the details that came in

through the front desk
and put them on cards.

And after a short while,

he realised that he could
do far better than this.

Knowing that the structure
of the adult body doesn't change

over time, Bertillon came up with

the world's first
biometric ID system.

Can you show me how it works?

Yes, we do have some equipment
so we can try it out -

but, first, we do
actually need a criminal.

He looks a bit dodgy.

Yeah, he does. I think we
should get him in. Look at him.

That's our researcher Alf.

And don't worry -
he'll receive a fair trial.

So the first thing
we could do is the trunk,

which is a measurement from the base
of the chair to the top of the head.

OK. He's very compliant, isn't he?
He is very compliant!

I'm starting to believe
he might be innocent.

OK, that is three feet.

And then we move on to the head.

So we need to use these callipers...
Sure.

...from sort of there to there.

11 inches.

And then we do the cheek,
from the nostril to the ear.

They're kind of quite sharp.

Bertillon took
11 measurements in total,

including fingers, head,
left foot, trunk and cubit -

that's the distance between your
middle finger and your elbow,

in case you're wondering -

all recorded onto
standardised cards.

These were the one of the first

standardised biometric
measurements ever used.

As well as the first biometric
criminal records,

Bertillon also standardised
the mug shot.

So before that, police officers
used to take photographs

in a kind of very random fashion,
with people wearing hats

and people holding their hands up
or not looking at the camera.

So, starting with a frontal image.

Keep a straight face.

Now turn to the side.

Thank you for being compliant.

He called it all the "portrait
parle" - the speaking portrait -

because with all the dimensions
and the photograph,

it gave a really comprehensive
description

of who those people were.

A way to properly identify somebody.

Yeah. Can I have a little look?
Yeah. Did it work, then?

Largely, it worked.

So in the first year in Paris,

it led to the identification
of around 300 habitual criminals.

Who otherwise wouldn't
have been identified?

Who probably wouldn't
have been identified.

One of the most famous successes
from Bertillon's cards

was when they helped identify the
French serial killer Joseph Vacher.

He murdered several
adolescent shepherds

and he was arrested for an assault,

so you could say that if we'd had
this system in the UK in 1888

that we might have solved
the case of Jack the Ripper.

What's the legacy of all of this?

Well, it has a tremendous
legacy, really.

You've got the mugshot,
which is still used today.

And then the mugshot
was extended to other countries.

So it was a connected
system, a network -

it's called the International
Police Commission.

It was set up in 1923

and now we simply know it
as Interpol.

Is this a finished card now?

It is. I think it's ready
to be processed now.

Right, you're going in the cell
Come on, then.

You think about what you've done!

Bertillon's classification scheme

was eventually superseded
by fingerprinting,

but the basic idea -

using measurements to identify
people - was reborn in the age

of Cold War paranoia...

...by this rather
buttoned-up-looking chap.

Mathematician Woody Bledsoe
received funding -

rumoured to be from the CIA -

to build the world's first computer
that could recognise faces.

They saw its potential for law
enforcement, and wanted a machine

that could sift through mugshots
looking for a match.

This hi-jacking is the kind of stunt
a thug like me might pull.

Woody passed away in 1995.

Peter Hart was his right-hand man.

He was a delight to work with.

He was competitive.

He enjoyed tennis and he liked to
say that he only played for fun

and what was fun was winning.

Woody was ambitious -
and he needed to be.

Our goal was to build a machine that
could use one image of a face

to correctly identify another.

And until this project was started,
that had never been done

and nobody knew if it was possible.

Peter and Woody were given
a stack of photos -

two different portraits
of around 400 men.

The quality was not very good,
more or less like newsprint,

and some of the pairs of photos
showed an individual

at obviously very different ages.

So just from the start,
it was a very challenging project.

And something else
stood in their way.

A computer at that time
was room-sized,

but had only a tiny fraction
of the computing power

of an Apple Watch today.

The entire computer memory wouldn't
have been big enough to hold

even a single digital photo.

The solution was nifty piece
of kit called a RAND Tablet...

The console consists
of a CRT display,

a RAND Tablet and
a single hardware button.

...an $18,000 machine that worked
a bit like an early iPad.

Oh, my goodness,
I have not seen this

since about 1967.

This one belongs to the Computer
History Museum in Silicon Valley.

The tablet work area is
the brown horizontal surface.

Peter and his colleagues would
project the photographs

onto the tablet, and use the stylus
to plot key features of each face.

The stylus is handled much
as a pencil or pen might be.

It's kind of a thrill to know

that there's at least one
that's still in existence.

The genius part is that
the computer only needed to store

a list of coordinates,
rather than an entire image.

The team chose 46 they thought would
best represent a face.

I remember talking to an amateur
painter who had painted portraits,

and she said, if you got the
eyes exactly right,

the portrait would look
a little bit like the subject,

regardless how bad
the rest of the painting was.

So that was a hint that the eyes
were really important.

And we used several points
on the eyes -

the centre and corner of the eyes.

Same thing for the lips.

Several points on the ears,
nose, around the jaw line.

Once the data was inputted,

they asked the computer to use
one photo to correctly identify

another photo of the same person
by matching the data points...

...and they pitted it against
some human volunteers.

The humans got about a third right,

while the computer did better -
around 50%.

But it was speed that really
set them apart.

It took one of our volunteers
six hours to match 100 photos,

and he was so frustrated
by the end of it

that he was pulling his hair out.

The computer, on the other hand...

And it took our computer program
about three minutes.

The results were literally
staring them in the face -

computers blew humans
out of the water

when it came to facial
recognition.

None of us had any idea
where things eventually would go

with artificial intelligence,
with face recognition,

or with any of the things
that we now read about

and hear about every day.

The CIA would neither confirm
nor deny any knowledge of,

or connection to, Peter or Woody.

But as the makers of the first
computer to recognise faces,

their work laid the foundations
for the facial-recognition systems

being used today.

One of the first widespread uses of
facial recognition was when Malaysia

introduced biometric passports
in 1998,

followed by the UK in 2006.

But facial recognition systems might
not be as objective as you'd hope.

A woman in London has become
the first person in the country

to be arrested using the new police
facial recognition system.

In 2018, US researchers found these
systems were worse at identifying

people with darker skin - leading to
real-life cases of wrongful arrest.

Campaigners say it will make
racial inequality even worse.

But that hasn't stopped
its widespread roll out

around the world.

In China, there are estimated
600 million cameras.

It has, by its own admission,

the most widespread facial
recognition system in the world.

They claim it could scan

all of their 1.4 billion citizens
in seconds.

TRANSLATION: The system can trace
all your movements back

one week in time. We can match your
face with the car you drive,

with your relatives, and the people
you are usually in touch with.

In the last 100 years, passports
have gone from simple paper books

to sophisticated
technological marvels,

employing an array of high-tech
tricks to make them

as hard to copy as possible.

So what's next for our passports?

This is the future.

I'm in Rotterdam to visit
a company called SITA.

They provide technology to
the air industry, and want to use

computer facial recognition to ditch
the physical passport altogether.

Air traveller volumes are going
to double over the next 20 years.

This is SITA's head of border
management, Jeremy Springall.

He thinks facial recognition
will help speed more passengers

through border control.

The first step is to put
my passport on a phone.

So now we're going to scan
the passport.

It's now reading the chip
in the passport.

You now have a digital passport
on your phone.

What we're now going to do
is check in for your flight,

so if you click on
"Get boarding pass.”

Did you come up with your
very own pretend airline

just purely for the purposes
of my visit? We have.

And, as you can see there...

...it's extracted all of this
information from you,

including your passport image -

so, which is the same as
the one off your passport.

Yeah. But actually of better quality

because it's the one from the actual
chip itself. The original.

It's also a better-quality face
because it was ten years ago!

Just like the eGates, the biometric
data on my chip will be used

by a facial recognition system,
just a way more sophisticated one.

So, Hannah, this is the border
of the future.

Except that there isn't
a border, there's no desks.

There's no desks, there's no
fumbling for your passport -

and, importantly, no queues.

Just a corridor. Just a corridor.

But a corridor with some cameras.

So what we're doing is,

as individuals walk
through the corridor,

the two cameras here are picking up
their facial biometrics,

and we're using an artificial
intelligence algorithm,

and what that's really doing,

is that it's identifying in that
frame where the faces are.

And then it's building a list
of all your features on your face.

I can see there, actually,
it's picked up who we are.

So it knows my name,
knows your name. Yes.

So it's taken that from the digital
passport that we submitted earlier.

And it's doing that all in
the time that it takes you

to walk down the corridor.
Absolutely.

Jeremy claims his cameras can
simultaneously identify

hundreds of faces
in a fraction of a second.

Is the idea that a
border guard is sitting

looking at a screen like this, then?

Yeah, potentially, because
there's going to be some people

that come through that, for whatever
reason, are on a watch list.

What would happen on the screen?
What would you expect to see?

So instead of a green box around
your face that you have now,

you're going to see a red box.
This is me as a bad guy.

So you've now been picked up
on the watch list.

As with border control today,

that watch list could
pick you out for anything

from your immigration status to
your biometric data not matching.

Mm! Looking at you, we can
see what flight you're on,

we check what information
has been checked.

And, in this case,
you've failed your health check.

Well, it says I'm 21. So, frankly,
if I was this unhealthy

as a 21-year-old, I can see why!

At this point, an official would
step out from behind a desk

and take me aside
for additional checks.

If you're successfully picked up
by the cameras, that is.

What if I was wearing a particularly
flamboyant hat one day?

So if you're covering the face,
then we might not be able

to pick you up. So, in which case,
we might use other interventions.

Oh!

No! No!

What we're seeing here
is our robot.

No, what we're seeing here
is my nightmare.

The dog has a camera on its head,

so it's able to pick up you
and take your biometrics

and make sure that you're OK
travelling across the border.

The final version might
not exactly be Rover here,

but roaming cameras
could be used to pick up anyone

missed by the overhead cameras.

How extraordinary.

We are trying a bit of innovation
here. You can try and knock it over,

and it's got a gyro in there,
and it stops it from going over.

Oh, my God, that is...

...extremely dystopian.

Creepy robot dog or not,

facial-recognition
technology like this

could vastly reduce airport queues.

A digital travel lane
just one metre wide

could process around 1,800
passengers an hour.

That is about six times faster
than ordinary eGates.

But will it work
equally well for everyone?

One thing about facial recognition -
these algorithms -

is that they do tend
to work much better

on people who have lighter
skin tones.

Is there a risk that you
disproportionately end up

pulling out people with
darker skin tones from the queue?

I mean, are you basically creating a
fast lane for white people? No. No.

And, to be honest, the algorithm
technology's improved hugely

over the last ten years.

And it can have a misidentified
rate of one in a million.

So, as in, one in a million
passengers,

the technology will think
it's someone it isn't?

Correct. Bias has been a big focus,

because it was rightly pointed out,
you know, five, ten years ago,

that the these biometric algorithms
were trained initially

based on typically white men.

More recently, though, they have
really improved in terms of

being able to really
identify any individual.

There's independent organisations
that verify biometric algorithms

to ensure the bias levels
are incredibly low.

The amount of technology in our
passports has increased dramatically

in the last 30 years.

Shake ya ass! You got it twerking!

HANNAH LAUGHS

Yeah, now, you genuinely are
stuff of nightmares.

And soon, for many people,
travelling across borders

could become a completely
seamless experience.

I think for a lot of people -
myself included -

this little book, it's about
the promise of adventure.

It's about a symbol of freedom, an
invitation to roam around the world.

But for other people,
passports are about rejection,

because all of the clever
technology that's in here -

all of the biometric chips
and the holograms -

they are in there
so that the government

can stop certain people
from crossing our borders.

Now, of course, lots of those people
will be criminals and terrorists.

So the passport in many ways
is helping to keep us safe.

But some others might be migrants
or refugees who are looking

to build a better life elsewhere.

Now, OK, I am definitely not going
to get involved in a conversation

about open borders,

but I do think that there is
something worth remembering.

That when it comes to this very
clever piece of technology,

actually, it's not
about freedom at all -

it's about control.

Next time, it's the vacuum cleaner.

That's not from just now.

Is that from just now?

It's the story of a wheezy
janitor in the 1900s...

He wanted to make an electric
sucking device.

Sure.

...a 1940s atomic bomb project...

...and some very creepy crawlies
that helped us fight the filth.

I want a vacuum cleaner, please.

Where is my old phone now?

Er...

If you want to find out how
I answer, or to learn more

about how technology and product
design can be more sustainable,

go to...

...and follow the links
to the Open University.