The security line at an airport, commonly acknowledged as one of the worst places on earth, just got a bit less soul destroying. Dubai International Airport announced that next year it will drop the ever-so-passé human security checks for biometric scanning in the form of an aquarium. Visitors will walk through admiring virtual fish while 80 in-built cameras scan each persons face and verify their identity.

"The fish is a sort of entertainment and something new for the traveller but, at the end of the day, it attracts the vision of the travellers to different corners in the tunnel for the cameras to capture his/her face print," foreign affairs chief Major Gen Obaid Al Hameeri said. The virtual fish, therefore, play a vital role in capturing passengers attention so the cameras can scan them accurately.

The airports new feature is due to be up and running in terminal 3 by the end of 2018 and will launch in the other terminals by 2020. Its not just fish either the aquarium can be swapped for other virtual scenes. Travellers have to pre-register before using the biometric tunnel by visiting one of the airports 3D face scanning kiosks; then, when theyve walked through the virtual aquarium, their biometrics will be compared to their digital profile and, if its a match, theyll be waved through with the messagehave a nice trip. If theres an issue, visitors will be stopped so security officers can perform more checks.