# Do countries keep a record of who enters and exits, and when? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 5, 2009, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409 "2009-11-05T10:37:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/21 "2009-11-06T06:44:35Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > The bulk of continental EU states are signatories of the [Schengen Agreement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. The British/Irish agreement is different from Schengen though, in that it’s an informal agreement rather than a Treaty. Which means that both countries are free to ignore it. In practice, there are generally no checks on the land border on the island of Ireland, but there are checks at Irish airports (not British airports, though, yet) and on both sides of the Dublin-Holyhead ferry route. For EU citizens, though, the checks usually involve just glancing at your passport rather than swiping it through anything, so no actual records are kept. The same is true for EU citizens entering a Schengen country from outside the Schengen area. ---
**Author:** ![Anaglyph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Anaglyph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaglyph)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/22 "2009-11-06T08:02:30Z")
If you enter the US as a non US citizen, they not only swipe your passport, the also take your fingerprint and your photograph!!! ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/23 "2009-11-06T09:25:31Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > 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. Ok, a yottabyte is a trillion terabytes. There isn’t that much storage on the whole Earth. But that’s ok. The NSA is perfectly capable of recording every email and phone call without yottabytes. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/24 "2009-11-06T11:04:04Z")
> [@pan1](#): > > 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. > [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > 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. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that **pan1** was a member of the armed forces travelling on official orders. Furthermore, once based in a European country, it used to be possible for US military personnel to travel to some other European countries as tourists, using military ID rather than passports to secure passage through border controls. The rules on such travel arrangements will have changed for most border crossings since 2001. ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/25 "2009-11-06T22:18:48Z")
Border crossings are recorded to some extent. A few years ago, I took my kids across from Ontario to Michigan for a weekend at a friend’s place. On the return trip, the _Canadian_ agent had the details of my U.S. arrival the previous Friday. The Canada Border Agent didn’t even bother to take the passports from my hand (probably satisfied that my story matched my license plate). On the other hand, contrary to **mcott** ’s experience, I travelled 22 times to Japan between 2001 and 2008, in addition to several US and UK trips, and was never subjected to a search. I wonder if it’s because I did actually once declare something that I’d brought back, and always had my receipts in my hand when answering questions about having anything to declare. ---
**Author:** ![Countrypolitan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/858c86/32.png) [@Countrypolitan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Countrypolitan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/26 "2009-11-07T02:04:30Z")
> [@Spartydog](#): > > 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. What’s on the screen is only for the use of CBPOs. In order to find out, you could file a FOIA. Or become a CPBO. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/27 "2009-11-07T02:25:32Z")
Thailand does. They’re more efficient about it now, too, since even the podunkiest border crossing has computers. Plus I have to report to Immigration every 90 days, and one piece of information required is when I entered Thailand. This has helped them track people in several missing-person cases involving foreigners. I recall back in the day, though, hitching through Europe. A truck driver from Britain picked me up outside of Brussels, and we passed through France with nary a check on me. At the Swiss border, since I was going to stay in Switzerland for a while, I insisted on handing my passport to a bemused guard, who glanced at it briefly, handed it back and said “Welcome to Switzerland.” ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409/28 "2009-11-07T02:43:39Z")
In this day and age of homeland security and anti-terrorism, what makes anyone believe that most countries would not enter your passport information when entering the country? There may be exceptions but certainly if you’re entering through US customs and immigration from an international flight, Uncle Sugar records your details. Pretty sure that there is a camera as well that snaps your photo. The US records all people entering by air. If you’re an alien, then you have a fingerprint taken as well. Every asian country I have ever been to does (Japan, china, Nam, thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, etc). In China, be it domestic or international travel, all Chinese nationals and aliens have their details entered into the computer and photo taken. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-countries-keep-a-record-of-who-enters-and-exits-and-when/516409.md?page=1)