Borders security shambles as 70m arrive in UK unchecked

A £1.2BILLION ‘ electronic borders’ system supposed to stop terrorists, foreign criminals and illegal immigrants getting i nto Britain has descended into a shambles, an official report reveals today.

Ten years after it was devised by Labour ministers, e-borders is failing to meet most of its objectives.

Some 70million passengers a year are arriving without undergoing background checks because of European Union data protection rules, inspectors found. The report reveals:

The system is unable to count people in and out, leaving officials in the dark a bout t he t r ue scale of illegal immigration.

Technical problems mean people arriving on ferries, Eurostar trains, cruise ships and small planes are not screened in advance.

Even when known criminals and illegals are flagged by the system, airports may not be phoned in advance to warn about their impending arrival.

Nearly 650,000 Customs records about drugs and other contraband were deleted without even being read.

The system is not being used to track tax fraudsters and benefits cheats going on holi day because of technical problems.

Alerts about criminals and illegal immigrants may be missed because staff start dealing with them then ‘log off and go home’.

The report is the second in two months from chief inspector of borders and immigration John Vine to have been heavily redacted by Home Secretary Theresa May.

Some 39 paragraphs or entries were deleted, and four tables of figures, on the grounds that revealing them could undermine national security.

But the raft of deletions will raise questions about whether embarrassing holes in border controls are being covered up.

Last night, Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, said the e-borders programme had been a ‘catastrophe for the British taxpayer’.

However, senior officials insisted the number of passengers covered by e-borders was rising.

When the full plans for e-borders were drawn up i n 2007, Labour ministers promised to ‘export the border’ to other countries by forcing anyone trying to get into Britain to reveal their personal information in advance.

By the end of this year, 95 per cent of all journeys into the country were supposed to be covered by the system. But the report reveals that only 65 per cent of journeys are covered.

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