Based on the Passenger Name Record (PNR) – the information that is collected on every passenger that travels to the USA – did you know that? The UK government recently announced that from 2009 – less than 14 months away – all UK residents will now have to supply 54 items of information before they will be allowed to travel out of the UK!
As part of the Labour governments e-Borders initiative and probably to be known as the Passenger Exit Record (PER), this information collection, some of which will likely contravene current Data Protection Act legislation is another example of this Labour governments seemingly over obsession with peering into our personal lives.
Yes there is a need to protect our population against the various threats that exist in our current society. However, society itself will only put up with a certain amount of intrusion into its lives.
Already with the highest number of CCTV camera per head of population
in the world and coupled with the intention to launch a National ID Card, the PER is yet another example of the UK’s slow march into an Orwellian world of mass population monitoring and mass travel control, perhaps even monitoring our train and cars journeys in the future. Sounds like the sort of controls that the Soviet Union had before its own collapse.
Write to your MP objecting to this as soon as possible. Sign up here if you’re against National ID Cards.
I have set out the different fields of the PER below with some comments, of course I’d welcome any feedback if you have additional information that I can add to these fields.
| PER Item No. |
Passenger Exit Record (PER) Field |
My PER Comments |
| Information about you | ||
| 1 | Passengers Name | Needs to match exactly what is on your passport |
| 2 | Gender | |
| 3 | Date of Birth. | Needs to match exactly what is on your passport |
| 4 | Nationality | Needs to match exactly what is on your passport |
| 5 | Type of travel document | |
| 6 | Travel document number | |
| 7 | Issuing country of travel document | |
| 8 | Travel document expiry date | Will this need to have a certain number of days/months left on it to allow you out of the country? |
| 9 |
Registration of any vehicle used to travel |
Will you have to carry all vehicle documents as well? |
| 10 | Place of birth | Needs to match exactly what is on your passport |
| 11 | Issue date of travel document | |
| 12 | UK visa or entry clearance expiry date | |
| 13 | Travel booking reference number | |
| 14 | Date of reservation | |
| 15 | Date(s) of intended travel | If this is an exit record, won’t it be the date that you are at the travel exit point? Or will we have to submit this information prior to travel. |
| 16 |
Passenger name if different to full name |
I always thought that when you had your passport checked as you boarded a plane this had to be correct already. |
| 17 |
Other passenger names if on same booking |
|
| 18 |
Passenger(s) address(es) |
|
| 19 |
Form of payment, including and credit card number |
We are told by many data agencies not to give out your credit card information, so why does this need to conflict with that advice |
| 20 |
Billing address of payment method |
Great, now we have add more confidential information! |
| 21 |
Contact numbers, including hotels or relatives being visited. |
Why do I have to give the name of my Aunt in Australia? |
| 22 |
Travel Itinerary and route |
|
| 23 |
Frequent flyer information including miles flown and address of account holder. |
Again, gathering of more confidential information. |
| 24 |
Travel agency used to make travel booking. |
Complicated in some cases of charter tickets |
| 25 |
Person at travel agent who made the booking. |
Surely against the Data Protection Act. |
| 26 |
Reference numbers of any shared bookings. |
|
| 27 |
Status of booking e.g confirmed, wait-listed etc. |
|
| 28 |
Details of passengers on booking with a different itinerary. |
|
| 29 |
Email address. |
What if I don’t have an email address. Will I not be allowed to travel? |
| 30 |
Ticket number and date of issue. |
|
| 31 |
Any other information the ticket agent considers of interest. |
This is random information gathering, I would want to know what the agent is saying about be, it could be inflammatory, it could be false! |
| 32 |
Number on Ticket. |
|
| 33 |
Reserved seat number. |
|
| 34 |
Date Ticket is issued |
|
| 35 | ‘No show’ history | If I shop around for travel tickets, how will they track this. |
| 36 | Bag tag numbers | |
| 37 | Details of whether travel arrangements are ‘flexible’. | |
| 38 | Names of any infants or staff in travelling party | Staff, does this mean nannies? |
| 39 | Is traveller an unaccompanied minors? | |
| 40 | Details of who made the booking. | |
| 41 | All historical changes to travel arrangements | |
| 42 | Number of travellers in party | |
| 43 | Seat information, including whether First class | |
| 44 | Is the ticket one-way only? | |
| 45 | Any other biographical information | What does this mean, if I have a larger than average bigger head or one eye, might I not be allowed to travel. |
| 46 | Cost of fare. | |
| 47 | Check-In time | |
| 48 | Actual seat number. | |
| 49 | How much luggage checked-In. | |
| 50 | Check-In agent’s Initials | This obviously means that the travel agents are being asked to spy for the government. |
| 51 | Out-bound travel Indicator | |
| 52 | Where did journey begin, if not first-leg of trip. | |
| 53 | Group indicator of whether a party is a family or friends etc. | |
Beasley's Place 
The airlines will be responsible for providing the PER element relating to a passenger’s document (passport/ID/green-gard etc.)The airlines are tooling up with OCR swipe devices to uplift or check PER data. They swipe the Machine Readable Zone of the document that contains just 6 fields of the 8 required fields. Date of issue and place of Birth are missing. There is equipment available that reads all fields on the document plus speeding up check-in and saving carriers costs but the airlines have started with swipe so they’ll finish. Another example of the government’s shortsightedness.
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