« BBC News 24: Intercept Evidence to be allowed in court | Main | Privy Council Chilcot Review report on Intercept Evidence - more *** »

UK e-Borders excessive Passenger Name Record etc. demands - surely these break several of the Principles of Data Protection ?

Tom Griffin has published the further results of his FOIA request regarding the planned UK e-Borders data rape of personal information which is far in excess of what should be collected to travel across what is supposedly a Passport free border between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

See

Therefore these checks will also have to be applied, effectively, to internal travel within the supposedly United Kingdom, by aeroplane or by ferry, between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

If they are allowed to get away with this, Soviet / Apartheid style internal travel bureaucracy, they try it on all other international travel and function creep and extend it to internal flights or trains or ferries in the entire UK.

We have no problem with the Police or intelligence agencies requesting such information for specific, narrowly targeted terrorist, espionage or drug or smuggling etc. investigations.

It is absolutely intolerable that such data is handed over, routinely, and automatically, in bulk, on the millions of innocent people who travel every year. Data Trawling through millions of innocent people's personal records is an expensive, ineffective and dangerous way of trying to protect our borders, and an unjustifiable abuse of our freedoms and liberties.

Why should any Identity Thieves and Stalkers or Burglars, with informants working in the Government Bureaucracy, or in Foreign Governments, have access to your Home Address, Credit Card and Email and Telephone information, simply because you travel to or from Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic and the mainland UK ?

Why should the Home Office Borders and Immigration Agency, be trusted any more than the proven incompetents at HMRC, DVLA or MoD, not to put this personal data at risk,, through loss, theft of unencrypted CDs or laptop computers etc. or just by selling it to criminals ?

What is the point of collecting information on, say, Requested Seat Number or Allocated Seat Number, when large numbers of passengers used cheap short haul airlines, which operate a first come, first seated policy, just like a bus ?

How long is this e-Borders data to be retained on file ?

Which UK and Foreign Government Agencies will it be routinely handed over to ?

How is this demand for excessive data, at all compatible with the Data Protection Act 1998 Principles of Data Protection , which civilised countries have adopted ?

Essentially the Home Office bureaucrats are trying the same tricks and manipulation with United Kingdom internal travel to Northern Ireland, as they have disgracefully lobbied the European Union, to allow to complete Passenger Name Records to be handed over to the United States of America and other foreign Governments.

Compare the list of Data Fields in the e-Borders disclosure, with that in our previous blog posting which gave details about the standard fields in one of the major travel booking computer systems: EU Commission betrays Passenger Name Record data privacy to USA despite EU Parliament

See also travel expert and privacy campaigner Edward Hasbrouck's Practical Nomad blog for more information.

Post a comment