Perhaps I can shed a little light on those scanners. In early November we were changing KLM planes in Amsterdam on our way back from a vacation in Italy. The KLM Amsterdam terminal has a customs and imigration barrier between the EU travel area and the International flight area.

The passport scanners were very efficient at moving people quickly between the two halves of the terminal. We just inserted the picture page of our passports and looked up at the facial recognition camers and then got the green light to move on.

Perhaps SXM is a beneficiary of lessons learned at AMS?