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£1.2 billion pledged to strengthen ‘off-shore’ border

1 August 2007

The Border and Immigration Agency today published details of its plans for an electronic border scheme.

The Government’s electronic borders programme to screen people before they travel to the UK moved closer today as the Border and Immigration Agency published details of its plans and the 1,000 plus arrests, which a trial of the technology has helped deliver.

The assessment estimates a £1.2 billion cost for the system which has already screened 29 million passengers.

Immigration minister Liam Byrne said:

“We’re creating an overseas border control with tougher checks before travellers board a train, plane or boat for Britain.  All our tests show it works and there’s over 1000 arrests to prove it. Now we need to go further with full scale screening of travellers.

“The electronic-Borders programme will provide a critical aid to security and counter terrorist work. By locking passengers to their identity we will create a new offshore line of defence, helping genuine travellers but stopping those who pose a risk before they travel.”

The e-Borders programme brings together key agencies and allows them to check advanced passenger data against watch lists. This will be done on a real-time basis between the Border and Immigration Agency, Customs, Police and UK Visas, building on the announcement last week that Britain will have a unified border control at the point of entry.

The initial stage of e-Borders has already captured data on 29 million passenger movements and issued over 13,000 alerts to border agencies, resulting in over 1,050 arrests for crimes - including murder, rape and assault. By 2009 the Government will count the majority of all passengers in and out of the country.

This new technology is being backed-up by a more visible and powerful presence at UK borders. The Home Office has tripled the number of immigration officers and put them in uniform. Under the UK Borders Bill, currently before Parliament, these officers will have greater powers to tackle organised crime and to search and detain suspected criminals.

Success in moving UK border controls overseas are very clear. Airline Liaison Officers have stopped nearly 180,000 people boarding planes over the last 5 years. That’s equivalent to about two jumbo jets a week. Last year 17,000 people were stopped crossing the channel illegally. In the same period, juxtaposed controls in France and Belgium refused 6,000 people entry to the UK. This means the number of illegal immigrants arriving in Kent has reduced by 88% since 2002.

Biometric Identity Management is introducing a ring of security to strengthen our offshore border. Biometrics visas are now issued in over 80 countries and so far there have been 5,300 matches to applicants who had their prints taken in the UK in connection with an immigration matter. From next year, foreign nationals residing in the UK will be issued with a biometric ID card.

The e-Borders pilot, Project Semaphore, has already resulted in a number of successes including:

• arrested a male wanted for murder
• arrested a male wanted for rape of a 13 year old girl since 2005
• arrested a male wanted for a serious assault 2006 who had kicked his wife about the head until unconscious
• a suspected facilitator was encountered without accompanying passengers, but a search revealed he was in possession of 170 counterfeit travel documents.  He was convicted and received a custodial sentence
• an alert was issued on a convicted drug courier and known supplier, who was the subject of a Deportation Order. Subject was refused leave to enter and removed
• a subject had been intercepted three times in the past by HMRC for importing large quantities of cigarettes. Subject was arrested and 15,400 cigarettes and 1 kilo of hand rolling tobacco were seized.

Notes to editors:

1. e-Borders is a joint project, led by the Border and Immigration Agency in partnership with the Police, HM Revenue and Customs and with UKVisas.
2. It requires commercial carriers and owner/operators of all vessels to submit detailed passenger, service and crew data prior to their departure to and from the UK.
3. This data will be checked against watch-lists, analysed, risk assessed and shared between UK border agencies. It will improve border security and assist in the fight against organised crime and illegal migration.
4. Information captured through the e-Borders programme will help build more accurate pictures of risk in advance - allowing us to build a better awareness of suspect passengers, travel patterns and networks. As a consequence we will be able to focus resources on identifying and where necessary intervening against, high risk travellers, while offering low risk travellers a more rapid service.
5. The Regulatory Impact Assessment will outline the effect of the required legislation on Industry, as this will have a direct effect on carriers who will be providing the data to the Agencies.  The Home Office is consulting closely with the airline, maritime and rail industry to ensure there is not a disproportionate impact on business.

By collecting advanced passenger information on all passengers traveling into and out of the UK, border agencies will be able to:

• identify potential threats to public security and take the necessary action to deal with them
• target our border control officers, customs and police officers much more effectively, to help them focus on passengers of concern and intervene quickly and effectively
• increase our efficiency in moving people through our borders, and allow us to manage the exponential growth in passenger numbers
• tackle immigration abuse, duty avoidance, and other kinds of border-related crime at source
• detain people of concern immediately on identification at the border, increasing operational effectiveness and potentially reducing operational costs in doing so

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