It’s stamped on your passport, but do the countries themselves have all this information in a database somewhere?
Or are records only kept for people who need a visa to enter and remain?
Yes and no.
Border Crossings, like between the US and Canada and Mexico are not name takers.
But if you fly on an airline or take a bus, the passenger manifest is recorded and kept, but not by the government. The government simply requires the airlines to keep the records available to them for a period of years.
I am a citizen of the US. When I flew to Canada, I filled out an official Canadian customs form with my name, citizenship, and passport number, and did the reverse flying back to the US. Now, how long they keep those, I don’t know.
I don’t either, but I cannot imagine that they are all entered into a database and kept. I think the passenger lists are, though, since they are computer files to begin with. When I cross the border by car, the border people enter something into their computer and I imagine those records are stored permanently too. How permanently is unclear.
On a slightly different topic, the current NY Review has an article suggesting that NSA is building a yottabyte (that’s 10^{24}) storage facility with the aim of recording and storing “permanently” every email and every telephone call that goes through US wires. Yotta, yotta.
The U.S. keeps records of border crossings for Americans for 15 years. We’ve been told that for us (Canadians) it’s ~80. Here’s a cite for the 15 year figure. I can’t find a cite for non-Americans but that’s what was reported locally last year.
Is there a link to an article like that anywhere. I would like to read it. That is some pretty incredible data storage capabilities dwarfing the entire current web by far and it would make Google look like a peanut. I wouldn’t put it past the NSA though. They are a wacky bunch and all jerk off to the book 1984 everyday anyway.
Update:
I found an article on it. Gotta go. A couple a guys in suits are knocking on the door.
My anecdotal experience indicates that it varies.
Every time I have flown in and out of South Africa as a South African citizen they swiped the code on my passport and made some entries on their computer terminal. I assume there is a record of my entry and exit in a database somewhere, unless the official was just playing minesweeper.
Flying in and out of the United States has been much more carefree, in a way that surprises me quite a lot. When I flew in on an H1-B visa they always made a note of it, but the one time I flew in after I had my permanent residence they just glanced at my card and passport and waved me in. It didn’t look like they took note of the entry at all.
Flying out of the United States is even more carefree. They do have that self regulated US-VISIT program where if you are on a visa you should “check yourself out” at an electronic terminal, but that hasn’t been available everywhere so there are times where you just wander out of the country with nobody knowing. That used to bother me because it made it harder to prove you weren’t overstaying a visa if nobody knew when you left.
I guess they rely on the airlines to keep them up to date? Is it a little more draconian at the land or sea borders?
Canada certainly keeps entry records on it’s own citizens. Last time I came back from England, I was sent to the secondary search line, and when I complained to the guy that this was my second search in a row, he did a little taping on the keyboard. Then he told me that with 13 trips in the past three years out of country, two searches was a pretty good track record, and that I was very lucky. Don’t know how long we keep them, though.
Then came the cavity search.
I live in the USA and I’ve been to about a dozen foreign countries in Europe and North America.
I’ve never had a passport.
Frequently when crossing the border, we didn’t even have to stop the vehicle.
I should mention. I haven’t crossed an international border since 2001.
I once entered Liechtenstein at the Swiss border. The red and white gate over the road was up and a sign said “Gone to Lunch, Please come in”. So they don’t have a record of my visit.
Walking across the border from San Diego into Tijuana is like walking through the turnstile that goes into the county fare. Only Mexico is free, and no one is watching.
They do have a place about 50 yards after that where there is a thing that looks like the three lights on top of a traffic signal. Next to it is a guy from Mexican customs sitting in a chair. If he feels inspired, he’ll occasionally ask someone coming into the country to press a button, which presumable activates one of the lights at random. Usually the green light goes on, and they just enter. If the red light goes on, he searches their bags–but no paperwork is done.
In practice, though, the guy is usually just sleeping, and everyone ignores him.
But when you go through Customs, at least at airports, your passport is swiped. Isn’t that information kept? I’m pretty sure the Customs officer can see a list of other times I’ve entered the U.S. where my passport has been swiped.
Not everyone goes through customs every time they cross every border. Yes, sometimes the information is gathered, such as when you do go through customs. The one time I’ve been through customs, they looked at my paperwork asked if I had anything to declare but never entered anything in a computer or even wrote anything on a slip of paper. I said I had a case of German beer and they nodded and told me to go on through.
The link:
It wasn’t the most recent issue but the most recent I’ve received.
Oh, I know that . But I’m pretty sure that I do go through customs every time I’ve entered the U.S. via air. And that includes when I fly between the U.S. and Canada. It’s also swiped by Canadian customs when I enter Canada going that way too, by the way, so I’m pretty sure they have a record of every time I’ve entered Canada by air.
:eek:
That’s the first time I’ve read the term ‘yottabyte’ with respect to something that is within the realm of possibility.
And doesn’t the MITRE Corporation sound like a James Bond villain?
I’m confused. I am aware that one can (or could, before 2001) travel between the US and Canada, or the US and Mexico, without a passport. But I don’t understand how you traveled between the US and Europe, or the US and South American countries, without a passport. No matter what your country of citizenship is.
The bulk of continental EU states are signatories of the Schengen Agreement which means there are no border controls between these states, meaning that there’s no means by which a record of who has entered/left by car or train can be made. A similar agreement exists between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Again if you travel by means other than air from Northern Ireland (UK) to the Republic your entry is not tallied.
My gut feeling tells me these guys aren’t as dumb as they look. The passport gets swiped, they look at the screen, the license plate gets photoed.
I did have an incident a few years ago when I crossed the US/Canadian border and was asked to pull over. It was all very innocent. However, it was amazing how much they knew about my movements. They could cite time and dates. There was one detail that didn’t match up and it cost me about an hour of my time until it got cleared up. I got religion very quickly. Don’t screw with these guys because they know a lot more than you think they do.
I posted a thread in GQ awhile back asking what is it that the immigration officers see on their computer screens. There were subsequent posts but no real factual answers.
For me, I’m going to play it safe.