Comments on: Brussels casts doubt on £1.2bn border controls http://www.no2id.net/newsblog/2009-07/brussels-casts-doubt-on-12bn-border-controls/ The latest on Identity Cards and Databases in the UK Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:28:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: andrew http://www.no2id.net/newsblog/2009-07/brussels-casts-doubt-on-12bn-border-controls/comment-page-1/#comment-143166 andrew Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:10:11 +0000 http://www.no2id.net/newsblog/?p=1336#comment-143166 Here's some of the uncorrected oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee that may have prompted the article: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhaff/uc817/uc81702.htm UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 817 House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE THE E-BORDERS PROGRAMME Tuesday 30 June 2009 Mr Tim Reardon, Chamber of Shipping ... Q32 David Davies: Are the UK Borders Agency requirements going to be legal in the other countries to which you sail? Is it possible you are going to end up breaching data protection laws if you carry out their requirements in other countries? If so, where do you go from there, because you are going to be breaking the law somewhere? Mr Reardon: Indeed. Ferry operators have got in trouble before by doing things that the Home Office here has asked them to do which has made them fall foul of the laws in the countries in which they were doing it. It is a question that we asked of the Home Office right back at the start of the process: Can you confirm to us that what you are asking us to do is lawful in the places where we will need to do it? There are two potential areas of difficulty: first, with national law in the countries at other ends of UK ferry routes, particularly France, where 85% of UK traffic comes from and goes to. There are difficulties there of data protection and also of whether commercial organisations have powers under French law to capture data from state documents. We believe that they do not. Secondly, there is the question of European law and whether what the UK is devising as its e-borders scheme is compatible with the Data Protection Directive, and indeed with the general rules of rights of free movement of European citizens within the EU. We see problems there - or, at least, we see questions there. We have referred that later point to the European Commission and received guidance from them that there is a problem. At the moment ferry operators are in a difficult position, being asked on the one hand to do something by the Home Office and on the other aware that doing so could place them in a difficult position at the other end of the route. Clearly, that is not a position that we want to be in. The practical consequence is that ferry operators are looking to the Home Office to confirm that its scheme conforms with the overall European legal framework within which it must sit and with national law at the other end of the ferry route. Q33 David Davies: Have they done so yet? Mr Reardon: No. Q34 David Davies: Will you not also want them to take responsibility for any legal action that may arise as a result of you implementing UK law and then being, I suppose, sued or taken to court by some other European country? Mr Reardon: Undoubtedly. In the past we have had our staff locked up for doing things that the BIA, as it then was, asked us to do. That is clearly not a place we want to return to. Here’s some of the uncorrected oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee that may have prompted the article:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhaff/uc817/uc81702.htm

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 817
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

THE E-BORDERS PROGRAMME

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Mr Tim Reardon, Chamber of Shipping

…

Q32 David Davies: Are the UK Borders Agency requirements going to be legal in the other countries to which you sail? Is it possible you are going to end up breaching data protection laws if you carry out their requirements in other countries? If so, where do you go from there, because you are going to be breaking the law somewhere?

Mr Reardon: Indeed. Ferry operators have got in trouble before by doing things that the Home Office here has asked them to do which has made them fall foul of the laws in the countries in which they were doing it. It is a question that we asked of the Home Office right back at the start of the process: Can you confirm to us that what you are asking us to do is lawful in the places where we will need to do it? There are two potential areas of difficulty: first, with national law in the countries at other ends of UK ferry routes, particularly France, where 85% of UK traffic comes from and goes to. There are difficulties there of data protection and also of whether commercial organisations have powers under French law to capture data from state documents. We believe that they do not. Secondly, there is the question of European law and whether what the UK is devising as its e-borders scheme is compatible with the Data Protection Directive, and indeed with the general rules of rights of free movement of European citizens within the EU. We see problems there – or, at least, we see questions there. We have referred that later point to the European Commission and received guidance from them that there is a problem. At the moment ferry operators are in a difficult position, being asked on the one hand to do something by the Home Office and on the other aware that doing so could place them in a difficult position at the other end of the route. Clearly, that is not a position that we want to be in. The practical consequence is that ferry operators are looking to the Home Office to confirm that its scheme conforms with the overall European legal framework within which it must sit and with national law at the other end of the ferry route.

Q33 David Davies: Have they done so yet?

Mr Reardon: No.

Q34 David Davies: Will you not also want them to take responsibility for any legal action that may arise as a result of you implementing UK law and then being, I suppose, sued or taken to court by some other European country?

Mr Reardon: Undoubtedly. In the past we have had our staff locked up for doing things that the BIA, as it then was, asked us to do. That is clearly not a place we want to return to.

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