Border officials are forced to take travelers’ COVID test papers at ‘face value’ and simply accept that the results are negative – because they are often written in a foreign language, it has been revealed .
Lucy Moreton, a professional officer with the Union of Immigration Services (ISU), said travelers’ documents written other than in English often simply had to be “taken in confidence”.
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She said officers spotted around 100 fake COVID-19[female[feminine certificates per day, but that there was no way of knowing how many more escaped detection.
And in his testimony before the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus she also warned that there was “little to no evidence” of how incoming travelers to the UK were complying with the quarantine.
Asked by Lord Strasburger how the border authorities were able to verify evidence of a negative test, Ms Moreton replied: “We are not, that’s the simple answer. It’s mostly taken on trust. “
She said the hundreds of fakes a day they were spotting were largely due to an obvious spelling error in the English.
The need for border controls has increased recently, due to the growing number of new coronavirus variants
She added: “They have to be in one of four languages - so if it’s in English and there’s a spelling mistake, you have an outward chance of spotting it.
“If you speak one of the other languages specified and you can spot a spelling mistake, you may see that too.
“If not, they’re taken at face value – do you have that piece of paper, that email, or something on your phone that overall suggests that you may have taken a test?”
“There is a series of code numbers that define exactly what kind of testing this is, and border forces have a list they can check it against, but these things are very easy to do electronically, unfortunately. “
And when we question them …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-04-21 10:08:00
