Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Tuesday August 2, 2005
The Guardian
The reintroduction of passport checks on everybody leaving Britain in
the immediate aftermath of the London bombings marks the future as
far as the government's hopes of improving the security of Britain's
borders are concerned.
Ministers believe that if they could track the movement of everybody
in and out of the country they could dispel the myth that Britain's
borders are an open door that leave the country a "soft touch" to
illegal migrants.
Until 1994 every foreign national arriving in Britain had to fill in
a landing card and everybody leaving the country had their passport
checked. The net result was a warehouse at Heathrow stuffed full of
landing cards which the immigration service neither had the staff nor
the inclination to process. The capture of potential terrorists or
criminals leaving the country depended on individual immigration
officers recognising the person in front of them at the desk from the
details circulated on their confidential "suspects" index.
The introduction of machine readable passports has restored some
credibility to the screening process but ministers' hopes of boosting
public confidence in border security rests on a £400m "e-borders"
computer project that relies on technology that currently only has a
limited capability.
The Home Office says Britain's borders are increasingly secure,
citing as evidence the reduction in asylum applications to their
lowest level since March 1997, and halving the number of people who
arrive without a passport or any other papers to 10,000 last year.
But with passenger numbers expected to rise to 100 million people
passing through 350 UK ports and airports each year by 2010,
confidence in border security is in doubt.
The Home Office says 33,000 illegal entrants were turned away before
they even got on a plane by a network of airline liaison officers
based overseas. Many thousands more were refused visas at British
embassies and consulates around the world. Airlines who carry
passengers without the proper papers also face fines.
Even at Britain's airports 38,000 passengers who arrived were turned
away and sent home before they could set foot on British soil. Yet
the vast majority of the unknown number of illegal migrants living in
Britain are overstayers; that is people who entered Britain legally
as visitors, to work, or as students, and failed to go home again.
Visas
The list of countries from which travellers need to have a visa to
enter Britain grows each year, with Jamaica, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka
all recently added to the list. Applications are supposed to be
checked against UK watchlists for terrorists and criminals. The
electronic fingerprinting of visa applicants is being introduced so
refusal data can be exchanged across Europe.
Project Semaphore
The first phase of the e-borders programme started its pilot scheme
in December. This will eventually involve the capture in advance of
the details of 10 million passengers travelling to and from Britain
on 10 selected routes and matching them against watchlists. But at
present it only covers passenger lists of those leaving Britain after
they have departed. Anything more sophisticated requires legislation.
Project Iris
The second component of the e-borders programme was introduced in
February at terminals two and four at Heathrow. It enables the iris
patterns in the eyes of regular business travellers to be stored
using biometric technology, so as to confirm their identity when they
arrive back in Britain. This will also cross-refer with the
introduction of biometric passports for all UK citizens from 2008.
e-borders
The Home Office said yesterday that the earliest the full e-borders
programme was likely to be in operation was April 2008, with its
extension to all the small seaports not until March 2014.
The full system will enable immigration staff not only to log the
immigration status of those arriving and departing but also check
against databases covering visas, sponsors and watchlists before they
can get on a flight. The immigration authorities hope that it will
enable them to do more to take action against those living illegally
in the country.
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