Passengers leaving Scotland to be screened at border

12-29-2008 Scotland:

Thousands of passengers travelling in and out of Scotland will be electronically screened next year under plans for the government's next-generation border control technology.

The £1.2bn e-borders scheme will link government agencies, travel industry systems and transport hubs such as ports and airports.

The database will start to count the majority of people entering and leaving the UK next year. Ultimately, travellers' details will be checked against government systems, with permission to enter the UK granted or denied before they leave foreign soil.

Scottish routes will be included for the first time from next spring and summer.

The scheme, which ministers described as an "offshore line of defence", could mean passengers having to book in earlier for flights to allow enough time for the data to be transferred.

Deputy Chief Constable Bill Skelly, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland spokesman on aviation and maritime issues, said: "It is about advance notification. Airlines will have to notify e-borders with the details of passengers. That information then goes into a central database where it will be checked against the police national computer and those on the wanted index.

"If someone is flagged, then before they arrive in the UK an alert will go out. We have to consider how to respond. As the numbers go up we will have to look at prioritising them. We may not be able to chase every fine defaulter but if someone is wanted for murder or there is a European arrest warrant for them we can ensure we are there waiting for them when they land. The database also analyses information about patterns of travel behaviour.

"Until we know which routes are involved we cannot predict exact numbers but there will be thousands checked coming in and out of Scotland."

The multi-million pound Semaphore pilot project, run by IBM and started in 2004, covered 10 international routes, screened 29 million passengers and led to 1000 arrests. The new system will screen 120 million.

Like the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system, used to track vehicles across the UK for crime and terrorism prevention and detection, the e-borders system has the ability to check thousands of details within minutes.

However, officers say it will have to be used within the confines of existing human rights legislation and will be focused on specific targets rather than all passengers.

"It is a bit like ANPR - once you switch it on you find that you could chase every single tax disc but that is not what the public expects," said Mr Skelly, deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police.

"Resources are finite. There will be a tiered approach and we will be looking, for example, for sex offenders and those involved in human trafficking.

"It could be people wanted for arrest warrants or serious crime and will be preventative. We have to be sensitive to human rights issues "The routes concentrated on have been mainly those going to Heathrow and Gatwick but once it goes online next year we will be able to capture the Edinburgh and Glasgow routes. It is about working with individual forces on priority areas and checking we have the resources in place to meet people off flights if that is required.

"What we will get is far more detail on everyone. There will be a legal requirement for carriers to give the information to police.

"Flights may have to close earlier as a result. Currently, some domestic flights close 30 minutes before departure but they have to get the information to e-borders 30 minutes before the flight leaves.

"At the moment, the system screens about 20 million passengers but by the spring and summer of next year that will be 120 million-plus. Eventually the technology is there to apply it to every single passenger." ..News Source.. by LUCY ADAMS, Chief Reporter