UK: e-Borders plan to tackle “threats”
01 May 2005
The scheme is one of the most advanced in the world - but will not be fuly in place until at least 2018
When it comes to border controls the UK is going to be way ahead of both the EU and the USA. Whereas in the USA plans for introducing profiling system (CAPPS II) for all passengers was withdrawn after a damning report from the General Accountability Office (GAO) and opposition from civil liberties groups. It is being replaced by a straightforward watch-list monitoring programme, that is, checking all passengers against a list of around 125,000 people. So far in the EU plans were agreed in April 2004 for the mandatory collection of passenger name records (PNR) and for biometrics (eg: finger-prints) in visas and passports (introducing fingerprints on EU ID cards is planned). But there is, as yet, no overall plan for how each of the 25 member states will use the data collected.
The UK's "e-Borders Programme" is intended to be a comprehensive system with the mandatory collection of data and biometrics for everyone who enters and leaves the country.
It will build on new powers in the Immigration and Nationality Bill currently before parliament and some of its implications are given in a "Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment on data capture and sharing powers for the border agencies" (RIA).
Scope and objectives
Once in place the UK's "e-Borders" system will be with us for evermore and the original, legitimating purposes, terrorism and organised crime in this case, can grow exponentially. As the police purposes in the RIA spell, the system is not just need for "terrorism and organised crime" but "to support general police and criminal justice functions" (p35).
The overall "Objectives" are set out as:
1. the "ability to deny travel"
2. "assessing in advance of arrival [of] the immigration and security threats posed by passengers"
3. to share information between immigration, police, security and intelligence agencies
4. to use "passenger information" and intelligence to inform the agencies.
The agencies will "capture" passenger data through a "single window" and jointly analyse "bulk data" and retain the data for an indefinite period.
The immigration, police and security agencies already have powers to require carriers (air, sea and land) to provide information of people travelling to the UK and "in some cases" from the UK (ie: to the USA).
However, the decision to "share or disclose information must be considered on a "case-by-case" basis" where the agencies can rely on "certain information processing exemptions" under the 1988 Data Protection Act "but again, this is on a "case-by-case" basis". Nowhere is it spelt out how data protection is going to work when the agencies "hoover-up" the data on every movement, add comments to some entries, or pass it to any foreign law enforcement agency (as provided for in the Bill).
The e-Borders programme will be delivered in three stages between 2004?2014 and include the "Iris Recognition Immigration System" for automated entry controls using biometrics, the e-Borders Operations Centre (e-BOC) authorising "Authority to Carry" which will "roll out incrementally to all air, sea and rail carriers operating internationally to/from all major UK ports".
The shift in logic is explained as follows. They are many "key drivers influencing the development of the e-Borders proposal" so in responding to these "drivers":
e-Borders seeks to move away from targeted use of the agencies' passenger information powers, towards the routine and comprehensive capture of data, underpinned by the "single-window" facility for carriers to provide passenger information to Government.
Or put another way, instead of targeting suspects information and data will be "captured" on everyone entering or leaving the UK.
Current statutory powers allow agencies to share information to "fulfil their own individual statutory functions", but