I have just been to Greece and I was stopped on entry at passport control and told to stand to one side. After about 5 minutes the officer came out of his booth and asked in front of and within earshot of other travellers if I had "had some trouble with the Police". I asked to be able to talk somewhere more discreetly and told him I was on SOR (at least I soon won' t be anymore thankfully). I felt very uncomfortable telling him anything not knowing what he knew about me and why I was being asked this and what the effect my answer would have. I was subsequently asked to provide evidence of all my booking details, boarding pass, where I was staying etc and this was taken away, photocopied and returned to me. All this took 30 -40 minutes and I was warned I would be stopped again when I left the country, and worrying about that certainly made me enjoy my holiday less.

He also explained that since April 6th this was a new procedure in Greece applying Schengen area rules. I missed my transfer to the hotel and had to get a 20 euro taxi and make up an excuse to the travel rep as to why I was late. On leaving Greece I was stopped again at passport control holding up a lot of people in the queue behind me while the officer got on the phone to someone for about 5 minutes and then photographed my passport and boarding pass without saying or explaining anything to me while I just waited nervously and embarrassed. God know what the ppl behind me thought.

I intend to travel elsewhere in Schengen area this year so I am anxious as to what it is going to be like when I arrive and depart and how I can be better prepared / informed. For starters I'll be taking copies of all holiday documents to give them so I don't have to wait for them to be photocopied. I gather from reading the part of the forum that I can access that there might be something called a Schengen notice or green flag / notice on my passport, but I am not clear what this means in terms of who put this on my passport and what info it gives. I'm worried how the information will  be used in future, if it'll be stored, shared among Schengen countries etc, I'm also worried they could create their own 'flag' on me after my time on SOR ends. BTW will the flag/notice automatically be removed when my term on the SOR ends or do I have to take some action myself to get it removed?

Don't worry too much about this.

The Schengen system has not changed. When you notify and travel, an alert is placed against your name/passport on the Schengen information system (SISII). When you enter a schengen zone country and they swipe your passport, it does an online check and will flag up to the border guard.  If the border guard has seen a similar alert. he/she will take a couple of minutes to check where you are going and who you are travelling with. If he/she hasn't seen such an alert, they will take a few more minutes reading all the instructions on their screen.

Note that this is an alert for a 'Discreet Check'. It does not deny you entry and it does not have any details about your offence.

In many of the southern European countries, especially during busy holiday periods, passports are often given a cursory glance and not scanned. Even when they are scanned, the don't always have the full online checks 'turned on'. I suspect what has happened in Greece is that their immigration authorities have now made it mandatory for their border to run the full SISII checks. Of course, many of the guards are now seeing these for the first time - they are meant to discretely check where you are travelling to/from and with whom. Taking photocopies happens sometimes, but not usually.

The alert can be seen by all schengen countries but, as I said, it is an alert for a 'discreet check' and has no other information about you or your offence. It's a joke of a system as it is never discreet!

These alerts are time stamped and expire. Once you are off the SOR, they will not be visible on SISII any more - you do not need to do anything, although can always ask your PPU to confirm they have removed them all.

SISII will have the alert information in its archived records for x years, but they cannot be accessed online during normal immigration work and there are tight controls about access to historical records. 

Thanks for that. Feel a lot more reassured.  So the check is  because I'm on the SOR not because I'd notified the specific travel to Greece to the Police? If I'd known about his I would probably have left any european travel til after my time on the SOR ends in a couple of months. It's not a problem giving where you're staying etc but  what do you say when you're asked about your conviction though, that was very uncomfortable and i wasn't even sure if I should have declined to say.

You were probably asked these questions because the border guard was unfamiliar with the process. It varies hugely depending on where you arrive and which border guard to go to.

I have had a similar question at an airport in Germany: "Do you have any problems in your country?" Obvious what he meant! There was a queue but luckily a lot of border desks, so I waited until everyone else had gone through, then explained to him. I told him about my conviction and he let me through after asking the address of my hotel. On the way out, I had no such problem - used an e-gate, got rejected obviously, then the border guard scanned my passport but waved me through with no questions, and actually said "Everything is OK."

Quote from Yankee: "I suspect what has happened in Greece is that their immigration authorities have now made it mandatory for their border to run the full SISII checks."

- Full SISII check have been mandatory Schengen-wide since late 2017. But I guess some countries have been more lax than others.

PS: on this note, I went to France on the ferry recently, and they didn't even check my passport (only the ferry company, which has no access to databases). Mid-afternoon on a weekday and the French border control booth was closed, everyone just drove through! On the way back I did have the French/Schengen exit check and the UK entry check, both in France, and neither asked any questions, I guess it's different when you're in a single-row queue of cars.

Just a technicality, but from personal work experience I can tell you that ferry companies only check your passport to make sure that it is valid for your country of destination and to record your name for the passenger manifest, which is a legal requirement. Beyond that they don't know anything and I'm sure they wouldn't care if they did know.

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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)

Having now done a bit of research I presume the SISII referred to is "Persons and objects for discreet or specific checks (Article 36 of Council Decision 2007/533/JHA) The purpose of this alert is to obtain information on persons or related objects for the purposes of prosecuting criminal offences and for the prevention of threats to public or national security."

If that is the case what has the fact of being on the SOR got to do with that stated purpose, especially if your conviction is spent?

Because according to governments worldwide and the Daily Mail, we are a permanent threat to public and national security, regardless of how much time has passed and how minor the offence was.

Another way to ask the same question is: 'Why are the SOR notification timeframes longer than the rehabilitation periods for the offence?". That is, why can we deem someone rehabilitated after 5 years but insist they are a risk and must be monitored for 7-10 years on the SOR?

On SISII alerts, the police have taken the easy way out. As the alerts don't stop someone from travelling, they automatically issue them to save themselves having to go through a risk management process for every individual and every trip.

On the point of the notification period, I'm not the first person on here to mention the rules for ETIAS when it starts. Only offences in the last 10 years, even if you are on the SOR indefinitely....

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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)

Hi,

My SOR finished in February this year, but when I arrived in greece yesterday I experienced almost exactly what the OP said. I assume that this means the flags are still on my passport? It was really embarrassing and frustrating at the time.