UK GAR form discussion, and UK border police procedures

Sorry – from a British view point.

but why are they interested about taking Euros or contraband out of France – they probably want to get rid of it – and our Border Agency can impound it when we arrive anyway.

(it, our and the all from a Brit perspective – sorry :—) )

dublinpilot wrote:

I’d always assumed that exit France thing was a Schengen rule so that in some strange theory they could control those entering and leaving (eg to stop a terrorist who has committed a crime leaving the zone). But if other Schengen countries don’t require an exit C/I airport then that’s not it.

In principle everyone leaving the Schengen zone should be checked, although that is not always done in practise.

In principle everyone leaving the Schengen zone should be checked

Why, practically speaking?

Anybody can leave anyway, and the Schengen zone is so huge that if some terrorist wants to hide, you will never find him.

Border control is meaningless, in the free world. From the POV of controlling movement, Schengen is purely symbolic.

( … ) Schengen is purely symbolic

If that be sooth, why are, ahem, certain countries so adamantly refusing to join? Solely for the symbolic value?

why are, ahem, certain countries so adamantly refusing to join?

That’s a good question.

I think the UK does it to (a) help control large volume immigration, and (b) to give the security people an opportunity to eyeball who is arriving in big numbers i.e. off an airliner etc.

With the UK being outside Schengen, an EU citizen can enter the UK and live and work there. But you can know, and can verify, his identity, because you checked his passport on his way in. So if he is or looks dodgy, you can make extra checks, etc.

With the UK being in Schengen, an EU citizen can enter the UK and live and work there and you are not allowed to know or verify his identity. Basically every criminal who has somehow, somewhere, managed to enter the Schengen zone can now enter your country and you are not allowed to even know about it.

If you now transpose this onto today’s terrorism issues, you can probably see a problem. I think that is as non-political as one can say it. So Schengen is a huge hot potato in the UK.

Especially when you look at some EU member states which are full of crime, gangsters, drugs, etc. Those states may not (yet) be in Schengen, but one day they might join and there is nothing “you” can do to stop it, and once they are in, they could enter your country and you will have no way to stop them even if you know who they are because you are not allowed to do passport checks etc. The only way you can stop somebody is if there is an arrest warrant out but if you can’t check their ID, how??

I guess different European nations see this differently. And this is where it gets political. I come from Czechoslovakia so I know what a “proper border” looks like If I try to keep it as neutral as I can, my view is that Schengen is

• a statement of intent to create a single “European country” (that is what the EU is about, surely?)
• a statement of de facto capitulation on controlling individual movement (that surely is completely obvious, given there are no “proper borders”)

This is all fair enough, and it does make the exit controls (having to leave via a Port of Entry) look purely symbolic, but I can’t see it working for much longer.

I guess banning passport checking just drives the necessary terrorist / wanted-persons surveillance underground, so you walk past a one-way mirror, or a camera doing face recognition, etc. I am sure the security people really hate it all because all the criminals can just take the p1ss.

But keeping this somewhat on-topic, I still don’t see the case for any exit controls I think the motivation must be purely to make a symbolic statement that if you refuse to play ball with Brussels (on Schengen) then you should endure addditional harrassment.

And, totally on-topic, I think the UK GAR is maintained

• to maintain police jobs
• to provide movement intelligence on criminals who are known but who don’t know they are known so they travel under real IDs (travelling under a false ID is very difficult in the long term)

dublinpilot wrote:

No. What he meant to say was the Schengen Zone.

OK, then I misunderstood the use of the word “customs”. The statement should have read

BTW you are meant to leave the Schengen zone from an immigration designated airport

instead of

BTW you are meant to leave the Euro zone from a customs designated airport

In that case, everything I wrote about France, Germany and Switzerland is irrelevant to this discussion since in that case, we would really be talking about customs and not immigration as here.

The rules for border controls upon entering and leaving the Schengen zone are much more centrally defined than those for customs controls upon entering/leaving the EU. In principle, the law makes no difference whether you are departing Spain for Libya or France for the UK. In practice, I would expect the police force to be much more interested in pilots doing the further than those doing the latter.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

Still cant help feeling the whole thing is a mess. I am guessing at major airports you are “recorded” outbound when in CAT as your passport is scanned (not that I am aware where the data goes), we in GA declare outbound, sailors dont declare in either direction, and not that I have been on a ferry for a long time, not sure what happens then.

When you leave the UK on CAT your passport is not scanned….there are no checks by BF….only by the airline and that is only for identification and to ensure you can legally enter the destination country (because they are liable to return you if not)

AnthonyQ

I dont think so.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exit-checks-on-passengers-leaving-the-uk/exit-checks-fact-sheet

and your passport is scanned outbound at various airports, all in addition to the airline data gathering activities.

I suspect these operations are effective in some areas, but in others where the intent is more sophisticated you have to doubt there effectiveness because a country such as ours surrounded as it is by sea and a very long coastline will ultimately leak like a seive.

Ok so the airlines pass API to the UKBF….

But I’ve never had my passport scanned on departure at any UK airport….