overview
studies
passports
visas
issues
travel
profiling
watch lists
ticketing
searches
Aust travel
abduction
refugees
deportation
borders
landmarks
related
Guides:
Privacy
Secrecy
Security
& Infocrime
related
Profiles:
Surveillance
Forgery &
Forensics
Identity
Theft
Australia
Card
RFIDs
Biometrics
ANPR |
travel surveillance
This page considers databases, networks and legal frameworks
for the surveillance of domestic and international travellers,
such as the Secure Flight scheme and ANPR.
It covers -
introduction
One aspect of the 'digital revolution' has been a
substantial increase in the capacity of governments to
monitor travel by their nationals and foreigners, in particular
travel across borders and using commercial airlines.
In contrast to past regimes, which were predicated on
official authorisation to move between jurisdictions and
on registration of the traveler's presence (whether by
a bureaucrat or by an agent such as an innkeeper), much
of that monitoring is 'non-invasive'. It relies on government
agencies accessing information held on private sector
databases (eg the computerised reservation systems noted
on the preceding page of this note) and information extracted
from travellers as the price of passage (eg drawn by migration
officers from their passports or from passenger manifests
and flight cards).
Readers of Victorian and Edwardian fiction will be aware
that it was possible to thwart pre-1914 monitoring schemes
through ingenuity, adoption of false moustaches or other
disguises and provision of bogus personal particulars
- whether for a romantic assignation in a railway hotel
or to evade the attention of the Okhrana and Sureté.
Undermining those schemes was possible because of
- delays
in collecting, transmitting and collating information
- problems
in interpreting information
- the
absence of effective personal identification documentation.
As
we enter the age of biometrics
unique identification should, in principle, be more achievable
and the mining of travel information from comprehensive
CRS and payment systems should enable what one enthusiast
characterises as 'surveillance at a distance', detecting
malefactors while freeing the innocent traveller from
the whiff of garlic as an official or hotel clerk peers
over his/her shoulder.
In practice some claims for 'total information awareness'
seem fantastic, given theft or corruption of official
documentation, problems with the disambiguation of information,
concerns about privacy principles and administration,
the very patchy nature of data sources and difficulties
with integration of systems across jurisdictions and agencies.
Some criminals - or would-be criminals - are for example
in possession of legitimate identity documents. Monitoring
travel payments tracks payments; in an environment of
credit card fraud that is not necessarily the same as
tracking people.
paper walls, princes and policemen
Well into the industrial era, most law enforcement
was local. Government officials concentrated their identity
verification and data collection at the ward/suburb, city
and provincial level rather than building effective national
databases. Their activity involved co-opting the private
sector, with an emphasis on residence rather than comprehensive
surveillance of what tickets were being sold and who was
on a particular vessel or train.
That emphasis included requirement that foreign travellers
display passports or other identity papers to the hotelier
(signing a hotel register, which in some instances was
periodically inspected by an official). Some regimes additionally
required foreigners and nationals to register their presence
with a local/provincial government agency.
Economic growth after 1945, globalisation, technological
advances such as the jumbo jet and market developments
such as Laker's transatlantic budget Skytrain resulted
in a second age of mass tourism and business travel. The
World Tourism Organisation notes
that the number of international tourist arrivals rose
from 25 million in 1950 to over 700 million in 2002, with
over half of the destinations being in Europe.
legal frameworks and human rights
International legal frameworks regarding travel have
attempted, with varying success, to accommodate sometimes
conflicting demands regarding human rights, commerce and
the integrity of the nation state.
Agreements under the auspices of the League of Nations
and its successor the United Nations have accordingly
emphasised freedom of residence, freedom of movement and
freedom of non-interference ('the right to be left alone')
as human rights.
Acceptance of those rights - and articulation of exceptions
- in bills of rights, case law, statute law and administrative
practice has varied.
Nations have exercised the capacity to administer their
own travel regimes, including
- cancellation
or denial of passports to criminals, bankrupts and perceived
subversives (eg Paul Robeson in the US)
- denial
of entry visas and residence documentation to disturbers
of the peace (eg Egon Kisch in Australia during the
1930s and David Irving in the 1990s)
- 'internal
exile' schemes, with dissidents (and some nationalities)
in the Soviet Union being sent to particular locations
in the East, an echo of the Tsarist Pale restricting
Russian and Polish Jews
- 'house
arrest' schemes, with dissidents such as Sally Aung
San Suu Kyi in Burma being restricted to a particular
building or suburb
- restrictions
on the entry of those fleeing political, ethnic, cultural
or religious persecution, those who have been expelled
and those who have been displaced by war or other calamities
- restrictions
on the entry of 'economic refugees', with denial of
access or internment while claims for refugee status
are determined.
There
is substantial variation in responses to those regimes
and in their active enforcement. Belgium for example mandates
all adult nationals carrying identity papers but in practice
there is little checking except when the bearer engages
in a transaction.
In Australia all states/territories mandate carrying of
driver licences while driving a vehicle, with display
of that document when requested by law enforcement personnel.
Most Australian hotels require display of a driver's licence
(or of a passport, as a substitute for the de facto national
identity document) when registering for accommodation.
As we discuss in the following page of this note that
information however is not systematically provided to
authorities; it provides the basis for action if there
is a payment default or the room is damaged.
One of the foundation myths
of the US is that of the moving frontier, with the intrepid,
independent - or merely indebted - traveller leaving the
constraints of 'civilisation' in search of freedom and
opportunity away from the big cities. That myth emphasises
the anonymity of travellers and freedom from government
interference.
It has been reflected in disagreement since 2001 about
the appropriateness of passengers presenting identification
to use US domestic commercial airlines. In Australia that
requirement has been largely unremarked since at least
the 1980s, with commercial airlines now enforcing a 'no
fly without photo ID' policy. (The cursory nature of inspection
in detecting falsified documents means that its effectiveness
is uncertain.) In the US the Supreme Court ruled in Gilmore
v Ashcroft that the federal government could mandate
provision of ID for domestic flights. In both countries
there is no corresponding requirement for travel by rail
or road.
locational privacy and commuter travel
Much of the advocacy literature about travel surveillance
has focussed on international and domestic travel via
commercial airlines, rather than by ship, rail, bus or
car.
That reflects government concentration on air travel after
'9/11' - aircraft as mechanisms of destruction and as
vehicles for delivering terrorists - and perceptions that
it is easier to capture and integrate data about flyers
than about people using different modes of transport.
However, it is useful to recognise that there is scope
for tracking terrestrial travel, including short-range
commuter travel. We have highlighted some locational privacy
issues and resources here.
They include -
- use
of closed circuit television (cctv) monitoring in public
places such as streets and in spaces such as shopping
malls that some people consider to be public
- RFID-based
transit management systems that identify vehicles (eg
cars and trucks equipped with e-tag tollway payment
systems) and individuals (eg smartcards used in some
rail, bus and ferry commuter networks)
- GPS
schemes for tracking vehicles or high-value freight
consignments
- automated
number plate recognition (ANPR)
- fixed and handheld imaging systems that recognise
vehicle registration numbers and are linked to traffic
violation and other databases
- use/misuse
of electronic ticketing
systems such as the Oyster cards used in major public
transport networks
- bracelet/anklet
systems for locating refugees and criminals
In
discussing security and surveillance we have suggested
that seamless Enemy of the State style surveillance
is not yet feasible and is unlikely to be in the future,
other than in exceptional circumstances. Use/abuse of
more limited surveillance schemes does, however, pose
issues for policymakers, advocates, solution vendors and
ordinary citizens.
next page (profiling)
|
|
Ketupa