e-borders now tracking half of UK passengers

Ferry companies are complaining about the scheme

The e-borders scheme is now tracking almost half of all passenger movements into and out of the UK, immigration minister Phil Woolas told the Commons yesterday.

The figure is ten per cent short of the 60 per cent the Home Office had anticipated by the end of 2009.

The £1.2bn scheme, which is running on budget, allows the UK to push its border controls further out to the point of passenger embarkation, which means anyone boarding a plane, boat or train travelling to the country will have their passport details checked before they depart.

It aims to track 95 per cent of all passenger and crew movements by the end of this year, representing all major commercial traffic, with 100 per cent coverage by March 2014.

Carriers will be required to provide all the information on the biographical page of a passport to the Home Office as part of the check-in process.

This information is fed through to a control room with 250 staff, including representatives from all law-enforcement agencies, which will be up and running in Manchester by the end of the year. The UK Border Agency is currently operating a smaller version.

Checks are made against crime, immigration and terrorism watch lists before a passenger is allowed to travel. But this only skims the surface of how law enforcement can benefit from the system.

Data will be retained in a live database for five years and put in an archive for a further five, meaning it is stored for 10 years in total. This allows police and law enforcement agencies to “mine” data - searching for suspicious patterns that could help target criminal activity.

Although relatively simple for airlines, ferry companies have complained the system has led to long queues at terminals as many passengers do not book ahead.

And the Home Affairs committee said last month that the system could be illegal under EU law for intra-EU routes.

EU law says a state cannot impose any requirement other than simple production of a valid identity document on an EU citizen except in exceptional circumstances, according to the committee.

The UK Border Authority, which runs the scheme, is investigating the issue and will report to the committee by the end of next month.