e-Borders
This section gives an overview of what our e-Borders programme is and how we are delivering it. If you are in the transport industry and want detailed information about your responsibilities under this programme, see e-Borders requirements for carriers and ports.
The aim of the e-Borders programme is to transform our border control to ensure greater security, effectiveness, and efficiency. To do so, we will make full use of the latest electronic technology to provide a way of collecting and analysing information on everyone who travels to or from the United Kingdom. Other technologies, particularly biometrics, will ensure we identify people securely and effectively.
The UK Border Agency is responsible for delivering the e-Borders programme, and we are doing so with the support of the police and HM Revenue & Customs. We are working closely with the travel industries, whose support is crucial to the programme's success.
Information will be gathered on all travellers, passengers and crew entering or leaving the country by air, sea or rail. It will allow us to identify passengers who are a potential risk and alert the relevant authorities.
The e-Borders programme has already successfully delivered three pilot projects.
- Semaphore has enabled us to test the e-Borders programme, ensuring carriers provide information on selected routes, and providing border agencies with detailed information about passengers who are a potential risk. For more information, see How we tested e-Borders.
- The joint border operations centre (JBOC) is the operational hub for semaphore and the e-Borders programme, and is a multi-agency operation staffed by officers from the UK Border Agency and the police. This is at the cutting edge of securing our borders. JBOC collects and analyses passenger information and provides border agencies with an alert on which they can act. This has led to significant operational successes. For more information on these, see How we tested e-Borders. JBOC is evolving into the e-Borders operations centre (EBOC), enabling us to create travel histories for passengers.
- Iris recognition immigration system (IRIS) is our biometric entry system, which recognises the unique iris patterns of a person's eye to allow quick, automated entry for pre-registered passengers at selected ports in the United Kingdom. For more information, see IRIS.
If you have questions about e-Borders that are not answered on this page, you can email the e-Borders programme team.
You can request access to personal information held by e-Borders in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1988. To request a copy of your records you should make a request in writing as a subject access request. Please see the Requests for personal data page on this website, for further information on how to do this.