Guardian: Unpaid fines, travel bans; passenger database

Unpaid fines may stop people leaving UK

- Home Office plan outlined in 'e-borders' scheme
- Huge amounts of data likely to be produced

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Monday August 6, 2007
The Guardian

Tens of thousands of people who have failed to pay court fines
amounting to more than £487m would be banned from leaving the country
under new powers outlined by the Home Office. Ministers are also
looking at ways of using the new £1.2bn "e-borders" programme to
collect more than £9m owed in health treatment charges by foreign
nationals who have left the country without paying.

The programme, to be phased in from October next year, will also allow
the creation of a centralised "no-fly" list of air-rage or disruptive
passengers which can be circulated to airlines.

The e-borders programme requires airlines and ferry companies to
submit up to 50 items of data on each passenger between 24 and 48
hours before departure to and from the UK. With 200 million passenger
movements in and out of the UK last year to and from 266 overseas
airports on 169 airlines, an enormous amount of data is expected to be
generated by the programme.

Passenger numbers are expected to rise to 305 million a year by 2015
and ministers claim the £1.2bn programme is the only way to provide a
comprehensive record of all those seeking to enter and leave the UK.
The immigration minister, Liam Byrne, claims that the programme will
create a kind of border control, with information being passed to
police and security services before passengers board a plane, boat or
train: "It will create a new, offshore line of defence - helping
genuine travellers, but stopping those who pose a risk before they
travel."

However, the long-term nature of the programme means that by 2009 only
half the passenger movements in and out of Britain will be logged in
the e-borders computers, and even by 2011 coverage will have reached
only 95%.

A Home Office assessment of the secondary legislation that is being
used to implement the programme gives some early indications of who,
other than suspected terrorists and international criminals, will be
on the British no-fly list and be banned from travelling to and from
the country. It floats the idea that provisions should be introduced
to ban travel overseas for the tens of thousands of offenders who have
not paid outstanding court fines or failed to discharge confiscation
orders made against them. Although no official estimate exists of the
number of people who have to pay court fines the amount they owe has
now reached a record £487m, with a further £300m in unpaid
confiscation orders.

Passengers will be further encouraged in future to book their tickets
and check in online. Other suggested benefits of the e-borders
programme include easier identification of those who falsely claim non-
domicile or non-resident status to avoid UK income tax, thought to be
costing as much as £2bn a year, and those who wrongly claim social
security benefits despite having left the country.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homea...142456,00.html
2465607