- Kable, Wednesday 1 July 2009 15.16 BST
Representatives of rail and ferry operators said the government's proposals for electronic checking of passengers have been designed with airports in mind, and are inappropriate for rail and ferry terminals.
Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 30 June 2009, they said that many ferry and rail passengers do not book tickets in advance. Scanning four passports for a car checking in at a port would take between 50%-80% longer, and coaches pose a particular problem because the ferry operator has no contact with passengers until they arrive.
Tim Reardon, policy manager for the Chamber of Shipping, told the committee that at peak times ports deal with 40-50 coaches each hour, and capturing passport data on arrival is not an option.
Speaking the following day he told GC News: "Travel by ferry is only in groups and usually in vehicles. The e-Borders scheme is designed for long haul aviation, and does not transfer to other services."
In a submission to the committee, Eurostar said that collecting passenger data before departure could significantly erode the 40 minute journey time savings achieved through the government's £6.1bn investment in the High Speed 1 line.
Marc Noaro, Eurostar's customer service director, expressed concerns that e-Borders would significantly affect the speed of traveller throughput, making stations overcrowded and inoperable.
The operators said there were questions about the legality of e-Borders, in particular whether national laws on data protection in countries where passengers embark for the UK permit the transmission of data to the authorities of another state.
A Eurostar spokesperson told GC News that the company had written to the UK Borders Agency in November 2008 about its legal concerns, but had not received a reply.
The £750m contract for the scheme was awarded to a consortium led by Raytheon and is scheduled for completion in 2014. Currently 60% of travel is being checked by the electronic system.
The Chamber of Shipping warned there is "no prospect of e-Borders going live in relation to ferry traffic, as the UK Borders Agency contends it will by next year".
However, Philippe Martin, senior analyst with Kable, said the programme is going ahead on schedule, but that some of the processes may have to be revised to provide more flexibility in passing through borders. For example, the information on passengers would have to be collected on coaches rather than ferries.
Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Chris Huhne said: "e-Borders is fast becoming another classic example of how the government can take a good idea and turn it into a disaster. We need exit checks so we actually know who is in the country, but we need them now, not in 2014.
"It should be possible to count people in and out of the country without delaying passengers, angering travel operators and keeping a huge database of our movements for 10 years."
