Failures creating a borders free-for-all

IT was billed as the electronic wonder that would finally prevent terrorists, foreign criminals and illegal immigrants from setting foot in this country.

Yet ten years on, the £1.2billion ‘ eborders’ computer system has proved a catastrophic failure, missing most of its objectives and leaving gaping holes in the protections it promised to deliver.

Why is it that every IT scheme touched by the public sector – from the £20billion wasted by the NHS to the £100million squandered on the BBC’s aborted digital media project – seems to crumble to dust?

Indeed, the e-borders system fails on almost every level. It can’t count people in or out. Technical problems mean people arriving on ferries, Eurostar, cruise ships and small planes escape screening.

Meanwhile, alerts about criminals are often missed, while 650,000 records of drugs and other smuggled goods have been deleted without even being read.

To cap it all, some 70million passengers a year – that’s one in three – arrive without background checks of any kind because of the EU’s data protection rules. What with technical incompetence, bureaucratic bungling and meddling from Brussels, doesn’t it sometimes seem that officialdom has a death-wish for Britain’s welfare and security?