Half of UK passengers now being tracked by e-borders

The e-borders scheme that seeks the electronic monitoring of all passenger movement in and out of the UK is picking up pace despite the ongoing concerns of the government that it may have to shelve the programme amid fears over its legality.

Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday the immigration minister Phil Woolas claimed that nearly half of UK movements were now being tracked, although this is still some way short of the 60 percent threshold predicted by the Home Office by the end of last year.

The controversial scheme, estimated to be worth £1.2 billion, allows border controls to be extended farther than merely the point of embarkation – meaning that all travellers to the UK by boat, train or plane will have the details of their passport verified prior to their departure.

The e-borders scheme hopes to eventually attract and trace 95 percent of all crew and passenger travel by the end of 2010, with ambitions to reach the full 100 percent in five years time. Under such systems all carriers will provide the biographical information page of passenger passports at the time of check-in, with this information sent directly to a 250-man control room. The control room will be staffed by a range of law enforcement officials and should be operational by late 2010, although a smaller scale version is presently run by the UKBA in the interim.

However, just last month the legality of the system was called into question by the Home Affairs committee which feared that EU laws relating to intra-EU routes could jeopardise the scheme.