Temporary immigration officers do not know members of EU, whistle-blowers claim On one day alone, it was alleged, five suspects were missed. Instead of the counter-terrorism branch of the security services being notified, it is claimed these passengers were merely waved through. According to The Observer security chiefs are seeking an urgent meeting with Border Force over over the failure of staff to pick up on alerts. The Daily Telegraph can disclose that staff, who have mainly been deployed on EU desks, have been making a number of other crucial mistakes, including not inspecting passports properly. EU passports contain a biometric chip which is an additional safeguard against forgery. They should be run under a scanner to ensure the document is genuine and has not been tampered with. But on occasions this has not been done. According to whistle-blowers, temporary officials at time not waiting until the chip has been properly scanned by the machine. Temporary staff have been stationed on the EU desks because the work should be more straightforward. But these are also the desks which are being targeted by immigration gangs hoping to smuggle people into the country using forged or doctored passports. Unions say that members of the hit squads are less likely to spot a suspicious passport than their more experienced colleagues. Other errors reported to this newspaper include allowing a Bangladeshi woman to enter the UK alongside British Bengalis travelling without thoroughly inspecting or stamping her passport. The litany of mistakes has highlighted concern about the training given to the temporary volunteers who are being brought in at a time when the Border Force is due to lose full time staff. Brian Moore, the outgoing head of the Force, has insisted the five to six days coaching the volunteers are given is adequate and in line with that given to permanent immigration officers - although this is disputed by the unions. Even without the errors the deployment of the temporary staff has been at times shambolic. Reinforcements, who have been shipped in from other parts of the country, have failed to start their early morning shifts on time - even though this is when demand is heavy because of the arrival of a large number of long-haul flights from Asia and the United States. "These reports are extremely disturbing and need to be investigated immediately," said Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary Theresa May took the decision to cut over 900 staff from the UK Border force since the election, pushing up queues and forcing a last minute panicked recruitment of extra staff for the Olympics as a result. These lapses appear to be a direct result of that decision. Instead of going to ground again the Home Secretary needs to take responsibility for her decisions and tell us urgently whether border security has been compromised.