Tories attack e-Borders database plan

E-Borders will log travel to and from the UK

The government has been accused by the Tories of "building databases to track more and more of our lives" after details emerged of plans to store travel data for 10 years on a database situated near Manchester.

The attack from shadow home office minister Chris Grayling follows disclosure of the database, part of Britain's e-borders programme, which the Home Office claimed is essential in the fight against terrorism, crime and illegal immigration.

"The justification is always about security or personal protection," said Grayling. "But the truth is that we have a government that just can't be trusted over these highly sensitive issues. We must not allow ourselves to become a Big Brother society."

The Home Office said the proposal is similar to schemes operating in the US, Canada, Spain and Australia. Much of the information required will be captured from data obtained by travel agents or carriers when passengers book.

"Our high-tech electronic borders system will allow us to count all passengers in and out of the UK and targets those who aren't willing to play by our rules," said Home Office minister Phil Woolas.

"Already e-Borders has screened more than 75 million passengers against immigration, customs and police watch-lists, leading to more than 2,700 arrests for crimes such as murder, rape and assault."

The £650m e-Borders system is being delivered by the Trusted Borders consortium led by US defence supplier Raytheon.

E-Borders is expected to log and screen 100 million passenger movements by April 2009 and 95 per cent of all border crossings by the end of 2010.