It is a little, unsettling, when they set up checkpoints to make sure people exiting the country are authorized to do so. I'm sure people can state good reasons, but it feels very East Germany-est.

The US and Canada haven't had exit checks in the recent past. What they've done is collect flight manifests and use that as confirmation that a person has left the country.

However, it's quite common in Europe and other countries. Every time I fly out of a European county, my passport has been check to confirm that I actually left. Same with several Asian countries.

Apparently the UK doesn't do it, but other EU countries do.[1]

[1]https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/checkpoints-borders-policy-d...

> Apparently the UK doesn't do it, but other EU countries do.

The UK has the ID document details checked by airline staff (or their contractors, like handling agents) with document details passed on to the Border Agency.

It's not to make sure they are authorized to leave. It's for matching exits to earlier entrances, so they can tell if people who came on time-limited visas left when they were supposed to.

In that case there is 0 reason to compel scanning everyone. Only people who are on visas would volunteer to be scanned as proof of exit.

There are people who are not authorized to leave the country. Paul Manafort, for example.

We need more details. It doesn’t state if they would do anything at all. They could be tagging faces for visa overstays so they would be flagged next time they can through.

It sounds like they don’t really have any automation to relate departures with overstayed visas.

The more hostility the public has towards immigrants, the more systems are set up to track people and deport them at the first opportunity, the first error that causes someone to move from "legal" to "illegal".

These tracking systems end up looking at everyone, because anyone might be an immigrant.

yeah. why would they want to verify we're allowed to leave? the default assumption should be that everyone is allowed to leave...

At first this didn't add up, but I think they want to be able to prove that you overstayed your visa. But with the current process, you can come, overstay your tourist visa, and leave, but they don't stamp you on departure, only on arrival, so they can't actually tell that you left.

Again, is this a real, rampant, dangerous problem? Probably not. But it's a real use-case (so they don't have to give fake reasons) for state-wide surveillance. Since it also claims to target foreigners (which by definition aren't voters), most locals/voters/politicians won't care, thinking it doesn't apply to them.

Not that I'm defending this, I think this level of surveillance is extremely dangerous. And the most obvious thing is that they'll slowly and quietly expand this to everyone else.

It has kind of been a thorn in the side of immigration enforcement though that determining who has potentially overstayed their visa because of the lack of exit tracking. Because of that trying to enforce visa overstays was really hard because you just have a huge list of people who have come with not much info about who actually left so trying to check up on visa overstays would waste a lot of time on people who had just come and gone as required. This trims down that list to be muuuch smaller so they can more easily check without wasting a lot of time.

You know, in practice, even your passport has always been a "permission to leave".

It's also a "permission to enter" some other country. But without it, you won't be flying anywhere.

Then you've got visas, which are "permissions to exist" in a certain geographical area (within a certain time-frame).

We've all had a default assumption that we can get a new passport any time, but it's actually never been guaranteed.

Not long ago even European countries had double borders - you had to go through one checkpoint of your own country, that would verify that you can leave(you are not a wanted criminal for example), and then another checkpoint of the country you wanted to enter, to check if you have the right to enter it. The area between the two was the no-mans-land. This arrangement still exists between some South American and African countries, you have to go through two separate checkpoints.

> Not long ago even European countries had double borders

Our current situation might be marginally better than "double borders", but you're probably aware we're headed in a police statey direction all over the world.

To catch criminals trying to escape the long arm of the law.

The long arm of the law makes everyone a criminal.