The present government has a notoriously cavalier attituted to the security of the taxpayer's data. Now, it wants even more from travellers, including their credit card details. |
We have been told, two years after the event, that the Revenue Department lost a data CD in 2005. It contained details of PEPs held by users of the UBS Laing & Cruikshank bank. The government described the loss as a 'one-off incident' at the time and the head of the Revenue Dept., David Varney, claimed that immediate improvements to the system had been made to prevent future data losses. Two years later, a junior clerk HM Revenue & Customs was able illegally to download the personal and bank account details of 25,000,000 people to 2 CDs for the National Audit Office and put them, unregistered, in the TNT mail service, where they disappeared. This same criminally careless government would like travellers to provide the following information everytime they go abroad. This applies to people using airports, ferries, trains and even yachts which leave British waters (without necessarily calling at a foreign port) and return to shore. But would you trust Labour's bunglers with any of it?
The information will have to be supplied at least 24 hours before the journey so that it can be circulated to police forces, HM Customs and the Security Service. Anyone with an outstanding court fine, e.g. for speeding, will be refused permission to travel. Those who do get to travel will be delayed more than at present by additional baggage searches and the inevitable screw-ups in the system. The scheme will cost at least £1,200,000,000 over the next 10 years. The Home Office has given a contract to the US company Raytheon Systems to run the computer system. If Labour's track record is anything to go by, if it is ever introduced, the system will be late and vastly over-budget, it won't work and the data stored will be readily accessible to criminals through blunders.
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