Intelligence led passport checks on UK departures
Following a report in yesterday's Contingency Today, the Home Office has confirmed that there are no routine passport checks on departing passengers at UK airports, but checks are undertaken on an intelligence-led basis.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "Embarkation checks by border agencies are undertaken on an intelligence led basis and are not conducted routinely.
"From 2008 the e-Borders programme will provide an electronic record of people entering and leaving the UK, counting people in as they arrive and out as they leave. We expect to be able to count 95% of all passengers in and out of the country by the end of 2010. We will also use biometrics to more securely link a person to their identity.
"Electronic border checks already capture data on passengers at an annualised rate of 22 million passengers. This has resulted in more than 12,000 alerts to the border agencies and over 1,000 arrests since June 2007, as well as other interventions."
