TheHome Officewill decide by Christmas
which of two consortia will win a £400m contract to supply the
technology to underpin the government's £1.2bne-Borders project.
The shortlisted groups are
BT Emblem, which includes
Anite,
IBM,
Lockheed Martin and
LogicaCMG and
Trusted Borders, led by Raytheon, with
Accenture,
Capgemini,
Detica,
Qinetiq,
Serco and
Steria.
A Home Office spokesman said e-Borders would count everyone,
including UK nationals, entering and leaving the UK. It would also
improve the UK's ability to identify and keep out undesirable
visitors before they arrive at ports of entry.
According to the Office for National Statistics, UK residents
left the country 69.3 million times, and foreign nationals arrived
32.9 million times in the year to July, meaning the system would
have to cope with at least 100 million trips a year.
Airlines and other passenger carriers will submit passenger and
vehicle details to the e-Borders system before departure. These
will be checked against databases of visas, passports, police
records and watch lists maintained by law enforcement agencies to
detect and prevent known undesirables from embarking, or allow the
authorities to meet them at the port.
The Home Office said it was unclear whether e-Borders would have
access to data available to police under the Prüm Treaty, which
allows European police forces to share personal data collected
during investigations.
e-Borders will rely increasingly on biometrics, such as
digitised fingerprint images, to link people, travel documents and
identities.
The scheme is a joint venture by the Border and Immigration
Agency, Customs, police and UK Visas.