Reported in the Sunday Times today …
The government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons. The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.
The computerised pattern of every individual's travel history will be stored for up to 10 years, the Home Office admits.
The government says the new database, to be housed in an industrial estate in Wythenshawe, near Manchester, is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism. However, opposition MPs, privacy campaigners and some government officials fear it is a significant step towards a total surveillance society.
Chris Grayling, shadow home secretary, said: "The government seems to be building databases to track more and more of our lives. The justification is always about security or personal protection. But the truth is that we have a government that just can't be trusted over these highly sensitive issues. We must not allow ourselves to become a Big Brother society."
Some immigration officials with knowledge of the plans admit there is likely to be public concern. "A lot of this stuff will have a legitimate use in the fight against crime and terrorism, but it's what else it could be used for that presents a problem," said one. "It will be able to detect whether parents are taking their children abroad during school holidays. It could be useful to the tax authorities because it will tell them how long non-UK domiciled people are spending in the UK."
The database is also expected to monitor people's travel companions.
Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, defended the plans. "The UK has one of the toughest borders in the world and we are determined to ensure it stays that way. Our high-tech electronic borders system will allow us to count all passengers in and out and targets those who aren't willing to play by our rules."
God, you have to love it, don't you? How wonderful to know we're being cared for by tough, no-nonsense blokes like Phil, and that anyone who doesn't play by his rules is gonna get canned.
The article goes on …
In a report last week, the House of Lords constitution committee, whose members include Lord Woolf the former lord chief justice, called for a significant cutback in the state's surveillance powers. It said Britain's traditions of privacy and democracy were under threat from pervasive and routine electronic spying and the mass collection of personal information.
The database is the unpublicised part of the government's so-called "e-borders" programme, intended to count everyone who comes in and out of the country by 2014. At the moment the UK Border Agency is running a pilot which monitors the travel movements of passengers on "high-risk" routes from a small number of airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick. Some 70m passenger movements have been tracked to date, but this is expected to increase to 100m by the end of April. Officials hope that by the end of next year 95% of the 250m annual passenger movements will be logged in the database.
Under the scheme, once a person buys a ticket to travel to or from the UK by air, sea or rail, the carrier will deliver that person's data to the agency.
The GOS has three suggestions for those who think that the government have got no bloody business spying on our holiday plans and that as usual they're just using the threat of terrorism to increase their control of the population, stifle dissent and protest, and generally finish the job Hitler and Stalin started all those years ago.
His three suggestions are …
(1) Do what he did, and get a boat. Even quite a small boat will get you to France. Over there you could hire a car and disappear right off Phil Woollyarse's radar. Pay cash for the car. In fact, pay cash for everything. (The GOS actually built his own boat. It wasn't very difficult. You need a big saw, you can use plywood, and waterproof glue is probably best. The pointy bit goes at the front).
(2) Book lots of those brilliant cheap offers from Ryanair - 25p to fly to Perpignan and back, for instance - so that it's registered on Hairyarse's database, and then DON'T GO! It'll cost you a few bob in airport taxes and so on, but it might be worth it just to bugger up the system.
(3) Whenever you go anywhere (or even sometimes when you don't), write a polite letter to the UK Border Agency (addresses here) saying …
"Dear Hairybum,
Next Tuesday, provided the budgie is well enough to be left because he's been a bit under the weather lately, my wife and I with her sister Marge and her new boyfriend who's called Wayne or Dwayne or something, will be flying to Palma, Majorca for a fortnight! We're going by EasyJet from Luton, and staying in this little hotel called Casa Majollica which sounds absolutely lovely, well it does in the brochure but then you can't always trust everything they say, can you? - so here's hoping!!!
I know you like to have all this kind of information in your database, so I thought I'd just drop you a line and save you the trouble of finding it out for yourself!!! You're doing such a great and difficult job keeping our borders secure and protecting us from all those terrorists, Christians and heterosexuals that you deserve all the help we can give you!!!
I'm sorry I can't give you the seat numbers, but we don't have them yet. Whatever, I pity the person who has to sit next to Dwayne or Wayne or what's his face, because he's enormous. He farts, too. He's not clinically obtuse, it's his glands. He says he has naturally fat glands, and the rest of his body just has to keep up!
Anyway, keep up the good work, and don't forget to let us back in a fortnight next Tuesday because Wayne has to collect his disability! We'll let you know if the budgie was OK and how the hotel worked out. The budgie's name is Frank.
Yours truly ….."
If we all did this and thousands of letters poured in every day, imagine how pleased the government would be. That's what's needed in these perilous times - a bit less whingeing and bit more cooperation with these kind people who are only keeping an eye on us for our own good. After all, if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear, have you?
Well, I suppose there is one little worry, actually. What happens when someone who works in the database centre starts selling information to criminals? You know, like who's going on holiday, where they live, exactly how long their house will be empty and what their credit card details are, and so on?
But I expect it'll be all right. I'm sure old Phil Bristlybuns has thought of it already. He doesn't mess about, him. He has rules.
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