Hi all, this is really useful reading, thanks to all those who have contributed.

My question is whether SISII is linked to the systems of non-EU/EEA/CH countries. If you have to notify of foreign travel and you go to a country outside of Europe, will those countries also be notified of your travel by the UK police?

Depends on your local police force/PPO etc.

If they're particularly annoying, they would simply "forget" to remove the flag. Then you would have to ask them, then they would ask for proof from you that the notification period has ended, in which case you have to find court papers and potentially see a solicitor or contact the court where you were convicted. The police will then grudgingly and belatedly remove your flag "as a goodwill gesture" "as an exception" etc.

This is what happened to me, not with a flag but with a banning/restraining order, which was for 2 years but the police said 4 years and I had to go to great lengths to prove to them that the court really did state 2 years. Showing them the original signed court document was not enough of course.

What I would do when you finish your notification period is to make a point of checking with your local police / whoever you report to, armed with paperwork.

A month ago (October 2015) I travelled from Dover to Calais by ferry. As is usual for both ferry and tunnel, all the checks are done in the country you are leaving i.e. if you're going to France, both UK and French checks are done at Dover, then you drive straight off onto the motorway at the other end. Vice versa when coming from France to the UK.

Anyway, at Dover I drove past both UK and French border guards who just waved all the cars through without even bothering to check passports or even opening the window of their little hut. On the way back at Calais, the UK border guard did look at my passport but he never put it through a scanner, it was just a quick visual check that you are the person on the photograph.

Maybe this has tightened since the tragedy the other week but at that point, which was definitely after the implementation of the new travel alert system, they weren't bothering with it at all.

Post Edited (BenS) : 24/11/2015 09:23:24 (GMT+1)

Thanks for this info Bachman, very interesting.

I'm glad you haven't let your restrictions put you off travelling, both in Europe and further afield. As UK passport holders we are lucky with the number of countries we can enter quite easily. I was recently in Mexico, which was also no problem with the police, the landing card asks nothing about convictions and the border guards just glance at your passport and stamp it without even taking a glance at your landing card or asking any questions.

Some of the border guards seem very dim, especially at smaller airports with only a handful of flights per day, asking you where you have come from when your arrival is the only one for hours in between! The most aggressive and idiotic thing I have faced was being taken into an interview room at Humberside Airport to be asked why I hadn't flown into a bigger airport like Manchester or London. I gave 3 reasons: the airport is nearer to my home, this flight was cheaper and it was at a more convenient time. I think the guard contrived that I was choosing to go through a small regional airport to somehow avoid detection or some other half-baked excuse to get me in trouble for a made-up reason.

It's the foreign border agents (France etc) that you need to be careful with, as if they scan your passport and see a flag, they can potentially put notes about you on their system. So, my concern there, is that once you no longer have to notify, the flag will still appear when you enter France, for example, as they've made their own records

That's interesting. So UK border agents would remove the flag so you wouldn't be flagged on returning to the UK or going through UK based e-passport gates?

I'm guessing it's not the same for when you're travelling abroad, especially when you're notifying and then article 36 alerts and/or green notices are sent out by plod? From my understanding, article 36 notices stay for one year after they're first sent out and the green noticed last up to 5 years.

It'd be interested to hear if anyone has managed to have article 36 and/or green notices removed after they no longer have to notify?

You raise a very good point Yankee - how many of our "allies" is the UK sharing our watchlist with?

It looks like you have researched the SIS 2 system. What's your view on how long article 36 notices stay on the system? From what I can see, it can be around a year after you stop notifying before the article 36 alerts stop flagging up at EU borders. PPU have told me that they think it could be 6 months (but seemed to just be trying to give any answer rather than say they didn't know).

I'd hope that, if for example I not longer had to notify as of tomorrow, that if I travelled in a month's time then nothing would flag up. But, I think I reality that it may well do?

Thanks Mirrorman. Have you got the source documents / links which support those timeframes? I've read similar, but I've also then read different ones, such as green notices are an automatic 5 years.

I've just seen this on another forum. Could be some positive news:

" I (stopped having to notify travel) in Dec so was interested in how it would compare leaving the UK this time.
Flew out to Jamaica no problem, was great not to have to notify. No questions at all leaving UK or getting into the island, I felt like a typical tourist

Coming home was a def result as unlike the previous 3 yrs the biometric gate worked ! Passport scan was accepted and also the face pic so hopefully the flags on my id seem to have gone ? Test will be if I try the US I guess".

Some positive news there for those who have to notify travel. As another poster said it may have not been an issue at Jamaixa as they aren't in the EU and so article 36 alerts wouldn't flag there, but does suggest, in this particular case, that a green notice hadn't been submitted on this person.

Hi Bachman, and thanks for sharing your experience.

I find it very interesting to hear that a Spanish border agent had all this information - it just shows that they're paying a lot more attention to foreign travel notices, potentially following the attacks in Paris.

I've been to the Canary Islands three times whilst having to notify - once there wasn't even anyone checking passports and walked straight out (shouldn't happen but nevermind), and the other two times they waved me through when they saw I had a UK passport, not even taking it out of my or anyone else's hands.

In essence, I feel things are getting tighter and the U.K. is sharing information a lot more, particularly since the roll out of SIS2 and the article 36 alerts - for more info on this, read up on this thread.