Sorry, but every inhabitant of the Schengen zone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows that there are no regular checks. That’s like telling an American that they don’t have to exchange currency if they travel to Hawaii.
The only problem is that it isn’t absolute. Spot checks aren’t all that common, but they absolutely happen. Been there, done that. And no, when it happened to me recently I wasn’t suspicious, or at least no more than my whole train that was checked. I didn’t even cross the border. I just happened to take a train that had crossed the border just before and there was a high-profile biker gang trial going on in city along the route. And half the cops involved were French, so it’s not like they would never do such a thing.
I have flown quite a lot in Europe during the last year and there is absolutely no passport or ID control as long as you stay within Schengen. I didn’t even have to show a passport yesterday when I flew out from London City Airport to Schengenland.
There are no border checks but there are countries (including France and Spain) where you are required to have ID and can be asked for it any time. You can get a spot check for reasons ranging from “walking while black” to “bored cop” to, as kellner said, “we’re checking this whole train” (most other reasons require a vehicle). I’ve taken the trainhotel from Burgos to Paris and back twice, got checked once.
If you haven’t had time to get a new ID, you can just bring the expired passport; both hotels and cops have to accept it although they may grumble.
As for CCs without PINs, we’re in the middle of changing to the always-PIN model; you should be able to use yours without ID but some stores insist in requiring ID every time even though it’s not a legal requirement when the card has a PIN (for some reason, French chains do this a lot - FNAC, Carrefour, Alcampo(Auchan)…).
The change was delayed because the CC issuers needed to prove that the always-PIN method was as safe or more as the signature model. You may have noticed that sometimes people mention here that “they can’t require ID when you sign a slip, and in fact it goes against VISA’s requirements!” - well, that’s for the US; for Spain, it used to be the law that you needed to present ID to use a CC. The checkers were supposed to verify name, signature and pic.
I find this very surprising as the UK is not in Schengenland.
I had to produce a valid photo ID (passport or driving licence) to fly from Birmingham to Edinburgh last year. My understanding is that you don’t get on a plane anywhere without proving that you are who you say you are and giving the carrier time to check you out.
Similarly my passport wasn’t checked on a flight from Dublin to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne a couple of weeks ago, although on the way back I had to go through passport check.
I think it might depend on the airport and the country you’re in. When I have flown from Heathrow I have gone through a passport control (and I think I had to do it when I flew to Aberdeen a couple of years ago), but the terminal at LCA is so small that it might not be feasible or necessary to separate the sheep from the goats depending on where they’re going as they will have to show their passports anyway when they arrive at their destination if in Schengen.
One other thing would be that nowadays you check yourself in and don’t do it at a counter.
A couple years back I got trains from Berlin to Prague, then to Krakow, then to Bratislava, then Vienna, back to Prague. I only was checked for ID on the train out of Berlin.
A couple years before that I travelled by ferry from Helsinki, by bus from Tallin to Tartu, then on to Riga, then Klaipeda, then Vilnius. I don’t remember being asked for ID on the buses.
I have flown from Stockholm, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and Oslo during the last months with no ID check whatsoever. On the other hand they usually ask for an ID when embarking the ferry to Stockholm in Riga.
I thought the UK and Ireland had never required passports? Some airlines might ask for them when you book the ticket, but British and Irish citizens don’t need passports for border control.
That’s different to what clairobscur’s asking about. I have had my passport checked at the border on the train from Spain to France, and I’m a British citizen. But it turns out that I was under no obligation to show it:
I am extremely surprised, however, that someone managed to fly from the UK to a country other than Ireland without a passport. I’ve always, but always, had my passport checked, because the UK is not a Schengen country and legally you must show your passport.
There is a passport control at the other end, so I guess that is good enough for Britain. I have flown from LCA to JFK without having to show my passport as well (US immigration was at a stopover at Shannon, though).
Well passport itself isn’t required for air travel to the UK (which I should have made clear) but some form of ID is, however on this leg of my journey no ID was asked for or checked.
ID forms acceptable include:
A valid passport
A driver’s licence with photo
An international student card
A national ID card
A bus pass with photo
A Garda ID with photo
A work ID with photo
So you did have to show your passport at the other end then? That’s the norm, I thought. Doesn’t mean you travelled without a passport. If you did, then someone majorly fucked up.
That’s airline regulations rather than ukba though. I’m not surprised if an airline occasionally doesn’t follow its own regulations.
Sometimes, though. Not always. It does seem really vague overall. But basically it’s not surprising that an Irish citizen’s passport wasn’t checked when entering the UK. It’s not directly relevant to the OP’s question.
In fact, although many (probably most) French people (including police officers, apparently) believe it, you’re under no obligation to carry an ID in France, and can’t be asked to identify yourself at any time, either.
The police can ask you to identify yourself if : they’re acting on the order of a prosecutor at a specified place and time for a specified purpose, or if a crime has just been commited in the vicinity or if they have an objective reason to believe you’re commiting/ have commited a crime yourself.
If in those circumstances you’re unable to prove your identity (by producing an ID or by testimony), the police can detain you for up to 6 or 8 hours (can’t remember) to try to identify you.
I suspect that arguing those points with a police officer might not be the brightest move, however.
Yeah, specially given that the times I’ve had cops asking for ID in either country has been either in airports, during a crime alert, or while driving. Here officer, happy officer, bye officer.