Border security and immigration controls

Tindle News

Isle of Man Home Affairs and Justice Minister Jane Poole-Wilson MHK announces measures to secure the island’s borders from criminal exploitation and abuses of the immigration system

Transcript

00:00I'm at the Government Conference with Home Affairs and Justice Minister Jane Paul-Wilson.

00:05There's been some quite big announcements this morning in regard to the need to tighten

00:12border security and immigration policies.

00:14It's an area that will be of great concern to a lot of people here.

00:18Yeah, and we did the Council Ministers Roadshows earlier this year and certainly it was one

00:24of the themes that came out of that.

00:26But actually we know from the operations that the Law Enforcement Agencies on the island

00:31have conducted, the changing nature of the threat is such that instead of operating in

00:37terms of surge operations, we want to move to a more comprehensive and sustainable approach

00:42to that.

00:43And a lot of the changes that I've been talking about in terms of technology, operational

00:47changes, legislation, that's all about moving our response to a more comprehensive and sustainable

00:54basis.

00:55How recent has this been?

00:58Was the Immigration Service completely overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge facing it in

01:02recent years?

01:03Yeah, I think as you've heard this morning from Sandy, there has been a combination of

01:08factors.

01:09I think Brexit is part of that because of the volume now of more people who would need

01:14to make visa applications.

01:17I think also passport applications rocketed after Covid and so on.

01:23So I think there have been a number of factors that have contributed to overall volume if

01:27you like.

01:28And then within the resourcing of being able to deal with that, it has definitely been

01:32a problem.

01:33But action taken to address that, but also to bring immigration officers together with

01:39customs to help on the enforcement side of the immigration work is a significant change

01:45that I think is starting to make a difference and will make a difference.

01:49You've heard that there are no records kept of people arriving here and people leaving

01:53here.

01:54Yes.

01:55That's got to change, hasn't it?

01:56I think, again, we have been used to, haven't we, as an island, relative freedom within

02:01the common travel area and although we know the visas that are issued from an immigration

02:07perspective, actually knowing whether people do arrive here is an important part of understanding

02:12who is travelling to the island.

02:13And we also heard, we don't know the extent of the abuses, but you must have some idea

02:17whether it's tens or hundreds or tens of hundreds.

02:20What are we talking about?

02:22I think from an immigration perspective that work is certainly underway in terms of understanding

02:28the scope of abuses, but also critically preventing any future abuses.

02:32OK.

02:33Now let's talk about facial recognition.

02:35Just tell me how that would operate and also how would you mitigate concerns over human

02:39rights, I guess?

02:40Yes.

02:41And when I was talking earlier on about the principles underpinning all of our approach,

02:45absolutely respect for human rights and proportionate processes matter.

02:50So in terms of facial recognition, what that does is it's basically automated because it

02:56can quickly identify people against a known watch list of criminals.

03:02So it's not capturing and holding people's data, it is an automated process whereby we

03:07have rapid opportunity to quickly identify known criminals who may be travelling.

03:11So your face will be captured on camera at the ports?

03:15In a moment, but an automated process that can wash very quickly against known criminals.

03:21That's how it would work.

03:22But critically, it would have to be underpinned by our own robust legislative process, which

03:27is what we would put in place before we deployed it.

03:30It's also recognising that we do not have the human resources to monitor every single person

03:35arriving on and off and to track, so that automation of it makes a big difference.

03:40And I think critically, the other point that I think I hope will give people reassurances

03:44is that we have then due oversight about the use of this type of technology in practice,

03:48so that there is reassurance that this is being used for the sole purpose we want to,

03:54which is to detect and disrupt and capture criminals.

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