Thread: 53 Questions Before You Travel

Travellers face price hikes and confusion after the Government unveiled plans to take up to 53 pieces of information from anyone entering or leaving Britain.

For every journey, security officials will want credit card details, holiday contact numbers, travel plans, email addresses, car numbers and even any previous missed flights.



The information, taken when a ticket is bought, will be shared among police, customs, immigration and the security services for at least 24 hours before a journey is due to take place.

Anybody about whom the authorities are dubious can be turned away when they arrive at the airport or station with their baggage.

Those with outstanding court fines, such as a speeding penalty, could also be barred from leaving the country, even if they pose no security risk.

The information required under the "e-borders" system was revealed as Gordon Brown announced plans to tighten security at shopping centres, airports and ports.

This could mean additional screening of baggage and passenger searches, with resulting delays for travellers.

The e-borders scheme is expected to cost at least £1.2billion over the next decade.

Travel companies, which will run up a bill of £20million a year compiling the information, will pass on the cost to customers via ticket prices, and the Government is considering introducing its own charge on travellers to recoup costs.



More here

Terror crackdown: Passengers forced to answer 53 questions BEFORE they travel | the Daily Mail

54 Did you turn of the gas stove?

I dont have a problem with this providing the information is used to weed out the focking dooshbags who may want to endanger the safety of innocent folks who are travelling.

^That's no way to talk about airport security guards, they're only doing their job!

It's people like me, with the odd unpaid court fine or so that are going to suffer.

What if you have no booking at the destination, I often gaven't as I leave in a hurry for jobs?
Many other questions would be aunanswered as well, or simply NA.
Still I can't see the harm in this, perhaps we could carry it all around on a stick drive, then they could simply download it in a second or two???

I once took an long international flight and decided to try the "fast your way out of jet lag" theory, so I didn't eat the entire 17+ hour trip. Upon landing, I think it was JFK, I was taken away by security and questioned intensively. I came to find out that they are suspicious of people who don't eat, but they wouldn't tell me more. Maybe drug mules who swallow the stuff or something?

Originally Posted by lom

54 Did you turn of the gas stove?

55 (M) Briefs or boxers? (W) Shaved or Natural?

Big Brother here we come.

It would cause chaos at the airports etc, check in times at least 6 hours b4 departure

I think they have passenger quarters on cargo ships.

Some pretty ridiculous and unnecessary questions there.
I wonder if they're even allowed to ask for your credit card number.

You think that's bad? You should what else they've got in the same package. Project E-Borders. This one might even effect the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" brigade, I can only hope!

• What is e-borders? The e-Borders Programme will create a joined up modernised intelligence-led border control and security framework. Enhanced information about passengers and their movements, and its communication through the use of new technology, processes and procedures will allow Immigration Service and other agencies including Police, Customs and Excise, Security Services to work more closely together to maintain the integrity our border control, target activity against those who have no right to be in the UK and assist in the fight against terrorists and criminals.
  
  It will allow us to introduce pre-boarding electronic checks of all persons flying to the UK, which will let us stop known security risks travelling. It will also collect information on when people arrive and whether they leave, which will help us stop people staying in the UK when they have no right to. Bona fide travellers will also gain from faster clearance at points of entry.
  At post:
  The e-Borders systems will collect both arrivals and departure information, together with immigration status and other related details. Staff who deal with visa applications overseas will be able to check applications against that database, for example to check the credibility of applicants or their sponsors. Supported by biometric visas, this will enhance the effectiveness of the entry clearance operation.
  Pre-entry controls:
  Carriers will provide advance passenger information (API) and passenger name
  records (PNR) electronically. Passenger details (including names, dates of birth, nationality and travel document details) will be checked against multi-agency watchlists prior to boarding a flight. Under an authority to carry scheme the Immigration Service will be able to prevent specified categories of passenger from travelling to the UK (including where they are security risks or because we think they will abuse the immigration control) and require carriers to submit passenger details for a check against relevant Government databases before departure. Any carrier that fails to seek authority to carry or has been refused authority to carry a particular passenger, but nonetheless lets him/ her travel to the UK, will be subject to a penalty.
  The provision of API and PNR data will allow the border agencies to identify persons of interest before they travel to the UK and to target further action in anticipation of their arrival in the UK. This might include deploying immigration officers from the intelligence unit to operate surveillance on a particular flight to help identify a suspected facilitator, or for police officers to immediately apprehend a passenger wanted for questioning.
  In country:
  Because both arrivals and departure information will be collected, as will the immigration conditions of entry, we will have a much clearer picture of passengers’ movements in and out of the country. This wealth of information will help border control, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and other Government departments to target their activity. In particular it will enable IND to measure compliance with entry conditions and make it easier to identify those who have no entitlement to be in the UK.
  
  The database of information and increasing collection of biometric data will make it harder for people to conceal their identity to frustrate our controls and make it easier to remove those who have no right to be in the country.
  
• What is Project Semaphore? e-Borders is initially being rolled out as Project Semaphore which will inform the design of, and allow us to identify and address risks for, the main e-Borders Programme. Semaphore will also provide operational benefit on routes of interest. Project Semaphore started in December 2004, with the capture of advance passenger information (API) on a limited number of the selected routes.
  It will run for 39 months when it will be superceded by full e-Borders system implementation. Semaphore will: capture passenger information on ten routes to the UK (inbound and outbound) selected by multi-agency consensus covering 10 million passengers and match names against Watch lists from UKIS, Police and Customs and Excise, score PNR (Passenger Name Records) against risk profiles, provide alerts to Government agencies to take appropriate action, monitor movements into and out of the UK by passengers carried on selected airlines and routes, provide for closer working between different agencies through a Joint Border Operations Centre (JBOC) which will be staffed by representatives of the Police, Customs, the Immigration Service and UK Visas working on a co-operative basis, introduce the concept of “single window” for carriers (deliver data to Government agencies once only rather than separately to each requesting agency).
  
• What is Project IRIS? As part of the e-Borders programme, Project IRIS (Iris Recognition Immigration System) is being introduced to provide fast and secure automated clearance through the UK immigration control for certain categories of regular travellers using biometric technology. The system will store and verify the iris patterns
  of qualifying travellers, giving watertight confirmation of their identity when they arrive in the UK. IRIS implementation will commence at Terminals 2 and 4 Heathrow, with the first enrolments from 28 February 2005. Roll out to Heathrow Terminals 1 and 3, Gatwick North and South Terminals, Birmingham, Manchester and Stansted will follow during the remainder of 2005. It is anticipated that, within five years, more than a million people will be registered to use the system.
  
  To find out more about Project IRIS visit: www.iris.gov.uk
  
• How many people were given leave to remain last year? All statistics on numbers and nationalities given leave to remain and all other immigration and asylum statistics can be found at:
  rds immigration and asylum
  

http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/faqs/controlling-our-borders/

UK "roll-out"
The UK's "e-Borders" system will, when implemented, be one of
the most comprehensive in the world and potentially the most
intrusive. As it rolls out there will be an initial stage (when only
a few people have biometric passports starting in the autumn of
2006 or are registered on the IRIS automated entry system), an
intermediate stage (in about seven years' time when half the
issued passports will have biometric facial images and fingerprints
and the take-up on the IRIS automated entry system may
well have increased) and the final stage (when all UK residents
will, in theory, have biometric passports around about 2018).
So there will, at the intermediate stage, be a number of
different queues at border control points:
1. Those using the automated entry IRIS scheme
2. Those with biometric passports/ID cards from the UK
(allowing "one-to-one" and "one-to-many" checks) and from
other EU countries (allowing "one-to-one" but not "one-tomany"
checks until there is an EU-wide database)
3. Those with biometric passports from non-EU countries
(allowing "one-to-one" but not "one-to-many" checks)
4. Those with biometric visas issued by the UK/EU (if the
"collision" of chips whereby an EU visa chip would clash with a
national e-passport chip is resolved; then checked against the
Visa Information System, VIS)
5. Those with old-fashion (current) passports from UK/EU
6. Those will old-fashion (current) passports from non-EU
countries with biometrically "chipped" visas in their passports if
third countries agree to this. All that every country is obliged to
put in their passports under the ICAO standard (International
Civil Aviation Organisation) is simply a digitised image of the
usual passport picture inserted onto a readable chip - this is not a
biometric and does not require any "enrolment" by the
individual.
At the intermediate stage category 5 could constitute 50% of
UK and EU passport holders. Or put another way by 2013
around 50% of UK passport holders will have, theoretically,
"secure" identities established by biometric checks and 50% will
not and the same will be true for EU citizens too. Moreover, the
EU is only just starting to think about how to impose fingerprinting
and the insertion of "EU visa chips" in other nations'
passports (category 7).
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/aug/ebord.pdf

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

I think they have passenger quarters on cargo ships.

We're watching you, bloody subversive!

^ Paddle your own canoe then.

Originally Posted by Clockwork Orange

It's people like me, with the odd unpaid court fine or so that are going to suffer.

Well go and pay it then.

Pretty simple really.

Personally, I don't have a problem with this, if it means that my journey will be free from incident, hijackers etc. However, we should be asking some questions of our own and feel justified in expecting an accurate and honest response. As an example, questions like;

1. Is the Pilot fit to fly?
2. Has he been breath tested?
3. Can you show me documentation that proves the plane is safe and fit to fly?
4. Is the air traffic controller, in charge of "my aircraft", fit and well.
5. Has he or she had a recent meal break?
6. Has that person anything on their mind that might shorten their attention span?
7. Are any RAF tactical fighters missing.....etc etc