Folinskyinla

Hi:

From time to time, one see posts here to the effect that the US Border Guards won't have access to UK criminal records. Think again.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/...09232008_4.xml

Ray

That means its now official ..what went on before was not ....

nettlebed

I wonder how many people this will hit, i.e., how many people who have entered in the past, denying any criminal record, will now get netted.

Does anyone have any feeling for this? I know that I have seen estimates in the past that 1 in 5 UK citizens have criminal records, which I don't believe, but I have also seen estimates of 1 in 20, which seems plausible.

Tracym

So, in trying to figure out what agency does what...

Does this mean, in essence, that the US could see a person's whole record (i.e. what shows up on a police report) at the border? Any arrests, cautions, convictions, whatever?

BritishGuy36

Perhaps Lansbury might be able to give us a "real world" figure.

MsElui

i think that it will help a lot of people because they will at least know that the US knows. (does that make sense?)

It should mean they dont have the self inflicted dilema of should i declare something i feel is not worth mentioning (due to distance in past, age at time of offense, minor value of offence, unsure of whether it is in fact CIMT or not etc, etc.), or ignore it and hope i get away with it. However, those that took the later route (of ignore) may fall a cropper as they may not be aware of this change and may continue to think I got away with it last time so I will again this time.

nettlebed

It can only mean extant records. For example, my arrest records have been aged out of Kent Police's (was Kent County Constabulary's) systems, and only the conviction records still exist. Furthermore, they made a typo when transferring the records from the paper to the electronic systems (my middle name was mis-spelled (in a fairly obvious manner - here's hoping it doesn't complicate the natz process)).

Also, unless they are going from local records, many people's details are not on the PNC: again, no record of me on the PNC: I had to go to the UK Court Service to get my MoCs, and even then, the records are not centralised AFAICT.

I'm guessing that this will be restricted to PNC details, but I'd be interested to hear differently from someone with authoritative knowledge.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

I would not even venture to guess. My theory these days is, if in doubt, assume the Dark Forces know about it.

Marty J

Just going from the link above, it says they will share "information on people who may present a threat", which seems to me to be a very different thing from saying they will share information on every single traveller or they "will know UK criminal records".

The UK have just announced plans for the introduction of no-fly lists, which will see certain individuals banned from flying to the UK; I would imagine this is the sort of thing they'll be sharing with their US counterparts.

It takes weeks to get police and background checks done in the UK, so I can't really see how they could share that data on demand for every person, even if they wanted to. I don't think even the UK's border officers have direct access to all UK criminal records.

ETA: Not that I'm encouraging anyone to lie on an I-94W or similar; if you can't answer no to all the questions, then you really need a visa, whether they know about it or not.

Ray

Onece Esta get going ..they will have weeks to check

probably be lots of profiling as well

anabella

Isn't that our fellow BE member?!

Ray

Its not Dean ...

Marty J

This is very true. I'm not sure how the UK would cope with a few hundred thousand extra police checks every month though.

I think they'll have their watch lists as always; the UK will just be sharing their watch lists and information on people who are denied entry with their US counterparts, and vice versa.

I can't see anywhere that suggests they will be sharing criminal records.

Ray

Not that I know anything about this ...but EL-Al are wonderful teachers on plane security

Marty J

Are you referring to their use of racial profiling, or the fact they check passenger lists against police databases?

I know they check against Scotland Yard's database in the UK, but I think it would be more accurate to call that a list of "persons of interest" as opposed to a list of those with criminal convictions.