Well, I’d say print that evidence (or take a screenshot) so that if the backend software or backend staff deleted the records you’ve still got the proof.
I am struggling to see why anyone need worry about “lost GARs”. If you’ve submitted it, on time – i.e., if you know you have compiled with the rules – and if for some reason you are (1) met by BF officers (which is unusual anyway) and (2) accused of not filing a GAR, can’t you just log into the sGAR website and pull it up? Via the submission history one can see all the details in each filed GAR (and the submission reference has the date/time of filing). How could you possibly get fined in those circumstances?
Sure, I get there may be consequences if people try to submit GARs late, or to Border Force via the NCU email, when this is no longer accepted, or sending a Border Force GAR to the police and not to Border Force, or (although I have a little more sympathy) people filling in names/passport numbers incorrectly, but if you’ve done what you are required to do then I don’t think anyone need worry.
I don’t think so, because some % of GARs were always lost, and if you presented the confirmation number, they apologised and quietly went away.
Happened to me a number of times. With Carl’s OnlineGAR you had a proper receipt. With the email system you didn’t but they accepted I had sent it if I produced a printed copy (so I always carried that).
In the UK it is quite impossible to do a criminal prosecution in those simple circumstances. It isn’t one of the central-ish European countries where there is no due diligence defence etc. The currently running Sub Post Office saga is way more complex; I mention that because somebody is sure to drop that one in (start a new thread if you do).
What would be “no fun” is if you have no internet access and need to get home. Need to carry the phone # of the local police office.
What might also be “no fun” is if you filed a GAR for time X and due to wx or whatever you arrive in the UK 3 hrs early. Currently they don’t seem to care but they might one day.
It is going to be interesting in a few months time, when the new regulations are not going be „new“ any longer. Let me guess: they will still lose track of some GARs and will then accuse the pilots of default in a much less friendly way than presently, threatening 10000 GBP worth of fines, etc.
Going to be no fun.
My take on this (worth what you are paying me for it) is that it is related to the general political situation: border control is now a red hot political topic, due to the fairly rapidly increasing stream of rubber boats from France (always happens when the wx improves) which is provocative even though the actual number arriving are a miniscule % of those arriving legally and quietly on “family permits” from various ex colonies.
And now we have the election on 4th July, and civil servants are worried that 10^6 of them will lose their jobs in some Home Orifice reshuffle, so they are desperately trying to fill inspection quotas 
They also don’t want to become entangled in govt/opposition blame for immigration etc.
Sala – I doubt it. He was going to Cardiff but never made it… I am sure a GAR was filed for that flight since the last thing they would have wanted was drawing attention!
What the officers told me is that they are trying to educate pilots about the changes, therefore there will be more presence for a while.
Why would Emiliano Sala concern border force? I don’t remember any issues with immigration or customs in his case?
UKBF turned up for the aircraft inbound last Thursday. I went over and asked them if they was checking me outbound, of which they wasn’t. I then got into conversation and they told me they would (Working hours permitted) be turning up for almost every flight for the foreseeable future.
Normally a risk assessment causes a knee jerk reaction like this. Is it the Emiliano Sala thing, or something else?
Deprecated by pretty much anyone. The doc format is pretty nasty, it’s basically a binary format that is a bunch of serialised OLE binary objects (OLE also being deprecated) and often only renders correctly in the exact version of Microsoft Word that generated it. None of it is well documented, and the last version of Word that didn’t support docx is now 17 years old and full of security exploits. If it’s all that Guernsey can accept then it’s a bit problematic. The docx format isn’t all that nice but at least it’s stable and documented by the ECMA.
Fortunately various programming libraries still support doc (both generation and reading), but they probably won’t forever.
“Deprecated” is a pretty common word in the world of software development. It means “it still works, but you’re on notice it’s going away some time in the future”.
That’s funny; those rules had never changed The GAR was not enforced until about 2010 but since then it’s always been there. I think they just don’t do fines anyway.
Yes they are nowadays very polite. My last bad experience (with the obligatory crash course on sarcasm, which the UK police were famous for) was in 2006, EGJJ-EGKA, no GAR, and my excuse was a mistake on the GAR form guidance notes, which the police were completely uninterested in!
