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BenS
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I apologise if this is somewhat repetitive, as there are many questions like this but each person's situation is slightly different.
I am on the SOR and travel abroad about 5 times a year for both work and holiday.
When I travel to Europe, I routinely get stopped and asked questions on arrival in the foreign country. I assume this is because I have a Schengen Information System alert on me, presumably added when I notified the UK police of my foreign travel.
I have also travelled outside of Europe while on the SOR, to Canada, Mexico, Kenya and Thailand. I of course notified all these visits. For Canada I was economical with the truth on the eTA question about convictions, if you get my drift. In all 4 countries, I had absolutely no problem passing through border control. No questions at all - fill in a simple form on the plane or on a machine upon arrival, and they check/stamp your passport and wave you through quickly.
This surprised me, as the police obviously inform the Europeans about me travelling there, but not the other countries. So I guess they have used their discretion not to issue an Interpol green notice. Thailand might pop up as a suspicious place for an RSO, but it was for a friend's wedding in a rarely visited rural area, far from the infamous tourist areas etc.
The fact that they clearly don't bother to notify the non-European countries of my travel suggests that they have discretion regarding Interpol green notices, but no discretion for the SIS and are required to add any RSO who notifies travel to Europe. Is this correct?
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Yankee
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Group: Forum Members
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+xI apologise if this is somewhat repetitive, as there are many questions like this but each person's situation is slightly different. I am on the SOR and travel abroad about 5 times a year for both work and holiday. When I travel to Europe, I routinely get stopped and asked questions on arrival in the foreign country. I assume this is because I have a Schengen Information System alert on me, presumably added when I notified the UK police of my foreign travel. I have also travelled outside of Europe while on the SOR, to Canada, Mexico, Kenya and Thailand. I of course notified all these visits. For Canada I was economical with the truth on the eTA question about convictions, if you get my drift. In all 4 countries, I had absolutely no problem passing through border control. No questions at all - fill in a simple form on the plane or on a machine upon arrival, and they check/stamp your passport and wave you through quickly. This surprised me, as the police obviously inform the Europeans about me travelling there, but not the other countries. So I guess they have used their discretion not to issue an Interpol green notice. Thailand might pop up as a suspicious place for an RSO, but it was for a friend's wedding in a rarely visited rural area, far from the infamous tourist areas etc. The fact that they clearly don't bother to notify the non-European countries of my travel suggests that they have discretion regarding Interpol green notices, but no discretion for the SIS and are required to add any RSO who notifies travel to Europe. Is this correct? You are correct. You can find the police operating guidelines online and they specify that travel to the EU/EEA should be logged on SISII (Schengen Information System) by way of an Article 36.2 alert for all ViSOR nominals (the database that records violent and sex offenders). This is for a discreet check (hence the questions at the border). There is no risk assessment by the PPU - alerts are issued for all travel. For travel outside the EU, the police guidelines refer to undertaking a risk assessment and making a proportionate decision whether to issue an Interpol green notice. I would assume from your comments that you were assessed as low risk and therefore no need for a green notice (the other explanation is that a green notice was issued but no picked up by the recipient country systems - while that could be the case for Thailand, Kenya and maybe Mexico, its highly unlikely for Canada). Of course every PPU is different and some officers are more 'jobsworth' than others. It's a bigger deal to issue the green notice - more forms, more internal approvals etc. In talking to my PPU about specific countries, they were definitely relaxed about places where they know you aren't asked about convictions and/or it is not a barrier to entry. I got the feeling that they might be a bit more circumspect if they were familiar with immigration policy for a country and therefore knew you would be making a false declaration. Catch 22 for the risk assessment - you're meant to be low risk and committed to rehabilitation but prepared to bend the rules when it suits! If there is an RSO who has been to the US while notifying, then we will know that there truly isn't any backdoor/underhand data sharing going on!
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BenS
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Group: Forum Members
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Thank you very much for your response.
I often wonder what the point is of these discreet checks for EU citizens travelling to other EU countries, to which they cannot be denied entry except in extraordinarily rare circumstances (the mere existence of a criminal conviction is not grounds for deny an EU citizen entry to another EU country - even a convicted murderer won an appeal against being illegally denied residence in another EU country on the basis of his conviction). So if they know they have to let you in anyway, what on earth will they glean from asking where you came from (which they must surely know anyway) and who you're travelling with?
It would take a brave RSO to notify and travel to the US! I would only do so if I were a dual US citizen and so knew I couldn't be denied entry, or something like that.
There's a news article about an RSO who successfully travelled to the US for a holiday without notifying (as he feared he would never be allowed to go if he notified), but upon returning to the UK, his passport flagged and he was arrested and jailed for failing to notify foreign travel. While illegal, I can't say I blame him for trying. I would have travelled back to Ireland, which has not yet implemented SIS, and then travelled to the UK from there, so as not to have to pass through UK passport control. Not that I would encourage this of course ;-)
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AB2014
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Group: Forum Members
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+xThank you very much for your response. I often wonder what the point is of these discreet checks for EU citizens travelling to other EU countries, to which they cannot be denied entry except in extraordinarily rare circumstances (the mere existence of a criminal conviction is not grounds for deny an EU citizen entry to another EU country - even a convicted murderer won an appeal against being illegally denied residence in another EU country on the basis of his conviction). So if they know they have to let you in anyway, what on earth will they glean from asking where you came from (which they must surely know anyway) and who you're travelling with? It would take a brave RSO to notify and travel to the US! I would only do so if I were a dual US citizen and so knew I couldn't be denied entry, or something like that. There's a news article about an RSO who successfully travelled to the US for a holiday without notifying (as he feared he would never be allowed to go if he notified), but upon returning to the UK, his passport flagged and he was arrested and jailed for failing to notify foreign travel. While illegal, I can't say I blame him for trying. I would have travelled back to Ireland, which has not yet implemented SIS, and then travelled to the UK from there, so as not to have to pass through UK passport control. Not that I would encourage this of course ;-) I hate to be negative, but the Ireland option might expire in March 2019.... 
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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)
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Yankee
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 234,
Visits: 994
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+x+xThank you very much for your response. I often wonder what the point is of these discreet checks for EU citizens travelling to other EU countries, to which they cannot be denied entry except in extraordinarily rare circumstances (the mere existence of a criminal conviction is not grounds for deny an EU citizen entry to another EU country - even a convicted murderer won an appeal against being illegally denied residence in another EU country on the basis of his conviction). So if they know they have to let you in anyway, what on earth will they glean from asking where you came from (which they must surely know anyway) and who you're travelling with? It would take a brave RSO to notify and travel to the US! I would only do so if I were a dual US citizen and so knew I couldn't be denied entry, or something like that. There's a news article about an RSO who successfully travelled to the US for a holiday without notifying (as he feared he would never be allowed to go if he notified), but upon returning to the UK, his passport flagged and he was arrested and jailed for failing to notify foreign travel. While illegal, I can't say I blame him for trying. I would have travelled back to Ireland, which has not yet implemented SIS, and then travelled to the UK from there, so as not to have to pass through UK passport control. Not that I would encourage this of course ;-) I hate to be negative, but the Ireland option might expire in March 2019.... Let's see what this Friday's cabinet offsite brings 
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AB2014
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 1K,
Visits: 6.9K
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+x+x+xThank you very much for your response. I often wonder what the point is of these discreet checks for EU citizens travelling to other EU countries, to which they cannot be denied entry except in extraordinarily rare circumstances (the mere existence of a criminal conviction is not grounds for deny an EU citizen entry to another EU country - even a convicted murderer won an appeal against being illegally denied residence in another EU country on the basis of his conviction). So if they know they have to let you in anyway, what on earth will they glean from asking where you came from (which they must surely know anyway) and who you're travelling with? It would take a brave RSO to notify and travel to the US! I would only do so if I were a dual US citizen and so knew I couldn't be denied entry, or something like that. There's a news article about an RSO who successfully travelled to the US for a holiday without notifying (as he feared he would never be allowed to go if he notified), but upon returning to the UK, his passport flagged and he was arrested and jailed for failing to notify foreign travel. While illegal, I can't say I blame him for trying. I would have travelled back to Ireland, which has not yet implemented SIS, and then travelled to the UK from there, so as not to have to pass through UK passport control. Not that I would encourage this of course ;-) I hate to be negative, but the Ireland option might expire in March 2019.... Let's see what this Friday's cabinet offsite brings +x+x+xThank you very much for your response. I often wonder what the point is of these discreet checks for EU citizens travelling to other EU countries, to which they cannot be denied entry except in extraordinarily rare circumstances (the mere existence of a criminal conviction is not grounds for deny an EU citizen entry to another EU country - even a convicted murderer won an appeal against being illegally denied residence in another EU country on the basis of his conviction). So if they know they have to let you in anyway, what on earth will they glean from asking where you came from (which they must surely know anyway) and who you're travelling with? It would take a brave RSO to notify and travel to the US! I would only do so if I were a dual US citizen and so knew I couldn't be denied entry, or something like that. There's a news article about an RSO who successfully travelled to the US for a holiday without notifying (as he feared he would never be allowed to go if he notified), but upon returning to the UK, his passport flagged and he was arrested and jailed for failing to notify foreign travel. While illegal, I can't say I blame him for trying. I would have travelled back to Ireland, which has not yet implemented SIS, and then travelled to the UK from there, so as not to have to pass through UK passport control. Not that I would encourage this of course ;-) I hate to be negative, but the Ireland option might expire in March 2019.... Let's see what this Friday's cabinet offsite brings We can always hope. 🤞🏻
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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)
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