By Tom Espiner, 10 February 2009 09:09
NEWS
Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have attacked the UK government over the retention of travel data.
The government plans to retain all travel data for everyone entering and leaving the country in a centralised database for 10 years, and is in the process of updating a centre near Manchester to process the data, the Home Office said on Monday.
UK border and immigration minister Phil Woolas said in a statement: "Our hi-tech electronic borders system will allow us to count all passengers in and out of the UK and targets those who aren't willing to play by our rules.
"Already e-Borders has screened over 75 million passengers against immigration, customs and police watch-lists, leading to over 2,700 arrests for crimes such as murder, rape and assault."
Retained information will include the passenger name, date, method of payment and place of ticket issue. The e-Borders Operations Centre at Wythenshawe near Manchester, which was previously called the Joint Border Operations Centre, has been collecting passenger information since October 2008. The centre will, by July, be able to fully track passenger movements. By the end of 2009, details of all passengers and crew entering and leaving the UK will be recorded.
The centre will be run by the UK Identity and Passport Service, with input from HMRC, MI5, MI6, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the police.
The Home Office insisted that the information collated would be used to track serious criminals and not used for actions such as catching benefit cheats. However, the Conservative party said the civil liberties of ordinary UK citizens were being gradually eroded by the increasing collection and collation of data by the government.
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said in a statement: "Everywhere that you look right now, the government seems to be building databases to track more and more of our lives.
"The justification is always about security or personal protection - but in a nation where we now have anti-terror laws being used by local councils to watch out for parents breaking the rules on school admissions, the truth is that we have a government that just can't be trusted over these highly sensitive issues. We must not allow ourselves to become a Big Brother society."
The Liberal Democrats said the e-Borders scheme was "another example of an intrusive database without any public debate about safeguards on its use".
Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary, Chris Huhne, said in a statement: "We are sleepwalking into a surveillance state and should remember that George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint."
Privacy campaigner Phil Booth, director of the No2ID group, said his organisation was "extremely concerned" by both the e-Borders database and other centralised government databases.
"They're building a dossier on anyone who decides to travel," Booth told silicon.com sister site ZDNet UK. "We have always said the government is passing a heck of a lot of information ahead of you in the form of passenger-name records. They have been collecting and collating this information - now they will retain it."
Booth said the National Identity Register (the database behind the National Identity Scheme), the ContactPoint child database, the NHS central care records system, the e-Borders database, automatic number-plate recognition systems and the DNA database all caused his organisation concern.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. Jack Carter
Most of the UK wants to live in peace with the rest of the world while she is looking to further the mistrust by hardening the borders that are crushing us within and exclude those outside.
Leave us alone!
Fortunately we're talking about government IT projects so, I think we'll be alright for a little while yet...
2. Guy Reynolds
I can see where this is going, e-borders database is going to be linked to the NIR and the NHS databases and when ever we go to seek NHS medical treatment we are going to need to produce out ID cards to ensure that we have not been out of the country for too long and have not disqualified ourselves from free NHS treatment.
I would probably lay bets that next on the government's list for enforced ID cards will be long distance lorry drivers, and business people who do a lot of international travel.
3. Karen Challinor
well we told people that the ID Card/NIR combination, when they finally make it compulsory and get it working, was all about tracking and controlling the population and their expenditure while in the UK
the plan to retain travel details, and doubtless there will be some attempt to monitor what you spend your money on as well, is just an extension of the same thing
preventing terrorism or criminal activity doesn't come in to the argument and never did
this idea needs stamping on and the ID card/NIR act needs scrapping as they are both about the government micromanaging the population
micromanagement is a dismal practice when used in business but can you imagine this applied to the general population ?
government appointed jobsworths telling you how to run your life in minute detail and having the authority to punish you when you don't do exactly what you are told
people who have the authority to look at any aspect of your life in as much detail as they want and use this information in any way they like (coroners and justice bill section 8)
medical records, tax records what you did with a lump of plasticene that upset a teacher when you were five in primary school, it will all be there and it will all come back to haunt you
it's 1984 AND Brazil rolled into one
4. Jeremy Wickins
Errrmm - "leading to over 2,700 arrests for crimes such as murder, rape and assault". I'm sorry, but that needs MUCH more detail. Let's start with when and where were the crimes committed, over what period, and what were the results of the arrests? To me, it sounds like a load of rubbish, so let's have some facts.
5. Karen Challinor
as Mr Wickins says 2,700 arrests are not 2,700 convictions
and I notice that the "crimes such as" comment details the more heinous end of the spectrum, which is "spin 101" for how to make the people fearful and therefore accept what you are doing as being right.
how many of the arrests were for people falling into the category of murderers, rapists and assaulters ? as opposed to say baggage thieves, confidence tricksters and smugglers which are still criminals but the category is a lot less emotional than the first group and less likely to provoke a blind unquestioning acceptance
we need more detail and less spin
then there is the item of 75,000,000 passengers screened for those 2,700 arrests or 0.0036%
how much did eBorders cost again ?
could there be a cheaper and less intrusive way of getting the same 0.0036% return on investment ?
has anyone looked ?
and this is being used as an argument for even more intrusion and expense
6. anonymous
Erm yes we do need to monitor, with so many parts of our lives inescapable from electronic interaction and the potential for fraud and even petty crime that’s perhaps even committed without full knowledge of the law.
I have often heard examples of skilled labour arriving with say an international driving licence valid for one year then continuing to drive beyond that. With a simple arrivals system that noted and acted on such data we could avoid the excessive insurance bills we all pay to cover uninsured drivers. This is just one of the many simple reasons why such a database is a good idea.
We don’t all live in a village with a post office where everybody knows us; Lets get real and deal with the increasing abuses to which society is now subject.
7. Karen Challinor
anonymous of london
I have to fork out £30+ for a card, not to mention contribute to the £5Bn in tax, lose my any semblance of civil liberties I ever thought I had, have my movements and expenditure tracked and monitored from cradle to grave both in and out of the country
because you don't know your neighbours!
I'm not the one who needs to get real here
and I don't live in a village either
as for foreign truck drivers overstaying their welcome, spot checks on continental trucks would be a cheaper, less intrusive and more effective way of dealing with the problem, not having me (a non truck driver) paying to be treated like a criminal
there are many ways to deal with the abuses to which society is now subject, this scheme is not one of them