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Passenger locator forms

Holiday Ideas & Foreign Travel
terminal7
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Passenger locator forms

#335023

Postby terminal7 » August 22nd, 2020, 10:30 am

Having recently completed a PLF on return to UK, I noted that the only data required is country you are returning from. Hence people wanting to visit Spain and avoid lockdown on return can go via Portugal now. Also, I am aware of acquaintances going back and forth to France, but via Switzerland therebye avoiding lockdown. Surely these forms should include all data of locations visited otherwise they are open to abuse by those who can pay the extra to 'officially' stay within a green route?

T7

Dod101
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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335027

Postby Dod101 » August 22nd, 2020, 10:40 am

I think most people would agree with you but there are plenty of people who are happy to merely comply with the letter of the law and not the spirit, and as far as I know there is no need to comply with the latter anyway.

Dod

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335034

Postby swill453 » August 22nd, 2020, 10:54 am

terminal7 wrote:Having recently completed a PLF on return to UK, I noted that the only data required is country you are returning from.

Not true, unless they've changed the form very recently. One of the questions on the one I filled in a fortnight ago was
Which countries have you been in, or will you be in, for the 14 days before coming to the UK?

Scott.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335097

Postby terminal7 » August 22nd, 2020, 3:40 pm

Swill

You are correct - I had forgotten as I had just been in one country. Apologises.

In effect, this still leaves it up to the ethics of the traveller. However, by definition, if you are travelling covertly from a green country as opposed to returning from a red country - you will lie by omission.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335102

Postby Lootman » August 22nd, 2020, 3:52 pm

Dod101 wrote: there are plenty of people who are happy to merely comply with the letter of the law and not the spirit, and as far as I know there is no need to comply with the latter anyway.

I'm the opposite to that. I'm often happy to comply with the spirit of a law, but not necessarily every minor technicality of it.

We've discussed here a couple of times before the idea of returning to the UK via a third country so that one can "honestly" declare at Heathrow that you've just arrived from a "safe" country rather than an "unsafe" one.

My view is that is actually more risky because if you are caught out, then you lied in writing. I would think people are more likely to admit the country they were in, agree to the self-quarantine and then play a little fast and loose with that. By all accounts the monitoring of self-quarantine is fairly trivial.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335104

Postby terminal7 » August 22nd, 2020, 4:00 pm

By all accounts the monitoring of self-quarantine is fairly trivial.


I have spoken to an acqaintance who travels back and for UK/France and as a result of her connections knows a number of people who also travel on this route. She informs me that 2 people (from different households) to her knowledge have been 'caught' not at home and were given automatic £1k fines.

Anecdotal clearly - but every bit of info helps.

T7

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335109

Postby Lootman » August 22nd, 2020, 4:07 pm

terminal7 wrote:
By all accounts the monitoring of self-quarantine is fairly trivial.
I have spoken to an acqaintance who travels back and for UK/France and as a result of her connections knows a number of people who also travel on this route. She informs me that 2 people (from different households) to her knowledge have been 'caught' not at home and were given automatic £1k fines.

Anecdotal clearly - but every bit of info helps.

Could be. My information is from a couple of travel blogs I follow. Most of the checking up is apparently done by phone, which doesn't sound like it would be very effective unless it's a home landline number.

Police can knock on your door but, if you don't answer, they cannot force an entry and cannot assume that you are not there.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335230

Postby dspp » August 23rd, 2020, 11:30 am

Lootman wrote:
terminal7 wrote:
By all accounts the monitoring of self-quarantine is fairly trivial.
I have spoken to an acqaintance who travels back and for UK/France and as a result of her connections knows a number of people who also travel on this route. She informs me that 2 people (from different households) to her knowledge have been 'caught' not at home and were given automatic £1k fines.

Anecdotal clearly - but every bit of info helps.

Could be. My information is from a couple of travel blogs I follow. Most of the checking up is apparently done by phone, which doesn't sound like it would be very effective unless it's a home landline number.

Police can knock on your door but, if you don't answer, they cannot force an entry and cannot assume that you are not there.


Tracking the location of mobile phones is pretty easy

https://geoloc.mobi/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking

- dspp

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335257

Postby Lootman » August 23rd, 2020, 1:46 pm

dspp wrote:
Lootman wrote:
terminal7 wrote:I have spoken to an acqaintance who travels back and for UK/France and as a result of her connections knows a number of people who also travel on this route. She informs me that 2 people (from different households) to her knowledge have been 'caught' not at home and were given automatic £1k fines.

Anecdotal clearly - but every bit of info helps.

Could be. My information is from a couple of travel blogs I follow. Most of the checking up is apparently done by phone, which doesn't sound like it would be very effective unless it's a home landline number.

Police can knock on your door but, if you don't answer, they cannot force an entry and cannot assume that you are not there.

Tracking the location of mobile phones is pretty easy.

Yes but it is also easy to leave a mobile phone at home, or switch it off.

In my case I have two mobile phones. It would be trivially easy to give them the number of one which I leave at home. And then carry the second one around with me.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335265

Postby beseeinyou » August 23rd, 2020, 2:10 pm

There is no tracking of phones going on, this is all done on goodwill, if they do actually call you you answer the phone answering the questions they ask and tell them yes I'm at home obeying the rules and that's it, if you persistently don't answer or if there is lots of background noise indicating you may not be at home then perhaps they may send Police round but probably not as they are too busy, as was pointed out though by Lootman in any case they won't be breaking down your door about it.

Sky news reported about a week ago that up until July 27th only one person had been fined and that the new figures are actually due out tomorrow so I'd be a bit sceptical about third hand scare stories.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335279

Postby Lootman » August 23rd, 2020, 3:25 pm

beseeinyou wrote:There is no tracking of phones going on, this is all done on goodwill, if they do actually call you you answer the phone answering the questions they ask and tell them yes I'm at home obeying the rules and that's it, if you persistently don't answer or if there is lots of background noise indicating you may not be at home then perhaps they may send Police round but probably not as they are too busy, as was pointed out though by Lootman in any case they won't be breaking down your door about it.

Sky news reported about a week ago that up until July 27th only one person had been fined and that the new figures are actually due out tomorrow so I'd be a bit sceptical about third hand scare stories.

Apparently there were ten fines issued for violations as of August 14th:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... s-12049435

I think you'd have to be very unlucky to get caught. Maybe someone totally ignoring it and going to work, spending evenings in the pub might get cited. But I suspect most people will spend 99% of their time at home, but still go out for exercise, shopping, errands. And I think that would count as following the spirit of the rule without being anal-retentive about it.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335283

Postby swill453 » August 23rd, 2020, 3:53 pm

Lootman wrote:Apparently there were ten fines issued for violations as of August 14th:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... s-12049435

That seems to mainly be about fines for failing to fill in the forms, rather than quarantine violations. ("Nine of the fixed penalty notices (FPNs) were handed out by Border Force officials at the border")

And it also has an error "The form, which people arriving in the country are told to fill in online at least 48 hours before entering" - in fact it should be filled in no more than 48 hours before arriving.

Scott.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335521

Postby beseeinyou » August 24th, 2020, 3:09 pm

Scott has beaten me to it, that's why I said one had been fined, the other nine were at the Border for form filling irregularity.

Beseeinyou

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335814

Postby Lootman » August 25th, 2020, 2:54 pm

beseeinyou wrote:one had been fined, the other nine were at the Border for form filling irregularity.

OK but your reference was from July whereas mine was from mid-August. So it seemed reasonable that the number of citations had increased. If you are saying that the number was 10 back in July then nobody new was cited in the intervening 3 weeks or so.

What this all indicates to me is that the checks they do as you arrive at the airport are the only checks for most travellers. And I have heard reports of arriving passengers not even being checked there.

I cannot help but feel that this entire enterprise is more about being seen to do something rather than actually doing something. Meanwhile it is killing the travel industry and inconveniencing millions.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#335824

Postby swill453 » August 25th, 2020, 3:32 pm

Lootman wrote:What this all indicates to me is that the checks they do as you arrive at the airport are the only checks for most travellers. And I have heard reports of arriving passengers not even being checked there.

Definitely no sign of checks when I returned from France a couple of weeks ago.

One might speculate that the PLF database could be connected to the passport reading systems at the border, and automatically flag up if it can't find a corresponding completed form. But I doubt it...

Scott.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#337205

Postby terminal7 » August 31st, 2020, 5:35 pm

As per Guardian article on 28/8/20:https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/aug/28/how-is-quarantine-enforced-for-uk-arrivals-travel-questions-answered

Public Health England (PHE) will carry out spot checks on those who should be self-isolating through its “Isolation Assurance Service”. PHE says that it “randomly samples around 1,000 eligible arrivals per day into England and Northern Ireland and limited details are securely passed to a contractor to make the calls.”

The system relies on phoning passengers and asking them to state they are self-isolating. To date, it has seen “a high level of compliance” with the “vast majority” of people contacted confirming that they are self-isolating for two weeks. Those who do not answer should expect to receive three calls over three days, and a text message on the fourth. If PHE still can’t contact passengers or it is concerned they aren’t complying, their details are passed on to the Home Office and Police triage, “who make decisions regarding further action”.

National Police Chief Council (NPCC) figures show that a total of three fines have been issued to people failing to self isolate in England.


So - do you feel lucky punk?

T7

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#337215

Postby Lootman » August 31st, 2020, 6:13 pm

terminal7 wrote:As per Guardian article on 28/8/20:https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/aug/28/how-is-quarantine-enforced-for-uk-arrivals-travel-questions-answered

Public Health England (PHE) will carry out spot checks on those who should be self-isolating through its “Isolation Assurance Service”. PHE says that it “randomly samples around 1,000 eligible arrivals per day into England and Northern Ireland and limited details are securely passed to a contractor to make the calls.”

The system relies on phoning passengers and asking them to state they are self-isolating. To date, it has seen “a high level of compliance” with the “vast majority” of people contacted confirming that they are self-isolating for two weeks. Those who do not answer should expect to receive three calls over three days, and a text message on the fourth. If PHE still can’t contact passengers or it is concerned they aren’t complying, their details are passed on to the Home Office and Police triage, “who make decisions regarding further action”.

National Police Chief Council (NPCC) figures show that a total of three fines have been issued to people failing to self isolate in England.

So - do you feel lucky punk?

It's basically the same method that HMRC uses i.e. let people do what they want and then investigate maybe 1% of taxpayers each year in the hope that taxpayers won't feel "lucky".

In this case the dilemma is that you can decide not to complete the online form and hope you are not one of the thousand that day. If then you are not picked then you basically don't have to quarantine. Or fill out the form, then not get checked and curse your decision.

Then again if the only check after border control is a phone call then it's all fairly toothless anyway.

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#337258

Postby Alaric » August 31st, 2020, 8:39 pm

Lootman wrote:Then again if the only check after border control is a phone call then it's all fairly toothless anyway.


Look at it from the point of view of a risk adverse employer. The employer knows you have taken holiday and can ask where you've been. If it's one of the countries on a quarantine list, you aren't wanted in work and might not get paid. That said, it doesn't prevent "exercise" or visits to the supermarket. But are these banned as well during the isolation period?

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#337383

Postby terminal7 » September 1st, 2020, 12:28 pm

it doesn't prevent "exercise" or visits to the supermarket. But are these banned as well during the isolation period?


You are mistaken - it clearly means what it says on the tin - quarantine for 14 days. No visitors, no outside exercise (unless you got a garden/balcony), arrange for food to be delivered etc...

T7

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Re: Passenger locator forms

#337386

Postby Alaric » September 1st, 2020, 12:37 pm

terminal7 wrote:You are mistaken - it clearly means what it says on the tin - quarantine for 14 days. No visitors, no outside exercise (unless you got a garden/balcony), arrange for food to be delivered etc...


If someone took the precaution of recording a mobile number on the form, ensured they had the charged mobile of that number with them at all times and switched off where possible apps that reported location, how would the quarantine be enforced?


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