Frosty Welcome For UK Electronic Borders Plan
Mark White writes on the Sky web site about eBorders:
The Government has stated that all passenger traffic will be monitored under the system by 2014, with 95% monitored by the end of this year.
Tim Reardon, from the Chamber of Shipping, represents the ferry companies – who carry more than 20 million passengers in and out of UK ports each year.
He told Sky the current system would cause enormous disruption for ferry passengers: “The e-Borders system as the Government has proposed it offers the nasty prospect of extra hassle and extra cost to passengers, for no benefit whatsoever.”
Of the programme for implementation, Mr Reardon said: “There’s no prospect at all of that happening within the timescale that the Government has suggested. They have suggested that it will happen by the end of this year. It won’t.”
The e-Borders programme has also run into legal difficulties, with the European Commission ruling late last year that passengers within the EU cannot be forced to give advance details and any such scheme within EU borders would have to be done on a voluntary basis.
Under government plans, the eBorders database will reatain details of everyone’s journeys in and out of the country for 10 years, along with personal details they gave to carriers, such as contact details and the names of others in their party.
