Start-up phase

This page explains the start-up phase of our e-Borders programme and the activities that will take place during this period.

The start-up phase includes the initial stages for implementing the e-Borders programme, and has a number of activities associated with it. These include:

• communicating with carriers
• registration of carriers
• interface selection

Communicating with carriers

We will send an initial engagement letter to the carrier to tell them about the requirements of the e-Borders programme. The letter introduces the programme and informs carriers of the requirements that they must meet.

You should return the form we have enclosed with the letter, and nominate a person within your organisation to be your carrier representative for the programme. We will then organise a meeting with the carrier representative to start the formal communication process.

We would prefer the carrier representative to be based in the UK. If this is not possible, the carrier representative must be able to communicate with our e-Borders staff, who are based in the UK.

The responsibilities of the carrier representative include:

• helping the carrier to deliver the e-Borders requirements;
• working with us to understand the required changes;
• communicating with the carrier's own internal and subsidiary stakeholders; and
• checking progress and telling us and the carrier's own management about any problems.

You should also appoint a carrier technical representative to liaise with us over technical aspects of the programme. This person will have enough expertise to be able to give technical support to the carrier representative. The carrier technical representative will be extensively involved in:

• interface selection;
• interface development;
• standalone testing;
• certification; and
• transition to live service.

If a carrier representative will not always be available as our main contact for dealing with you, you may have a local United Kingdom representative who acts on behalf of the carrier representative.

Registration phase

The United Kingdom Government requires an organisation or individual to register before it can access government systems, in this case the e-Borders system. This removes the possibility of unauthorised access to government systems. The first step in the registration process is for you to complete the registration form and return it to your stakeholder relationship manager. We will tell you what you need to do next.

Interface selection phase

To provide the required information, most carriers will need to build an interface that will allow their systems to connect with the e-Borders system and transmit information to it. There are different interface options to reflect the different levels of IT maturity and capability of different carriers.

Carriers will be obliged by law to provide certain information to e-Borders, and they will use one or more of these interface options to deliver the information to e-Borders. So that they can choose and build their interfaces, carriers will be given interface control documents (ICDs) which describe each interface.

The e-Borders overview for technology suppliers (PDF 220K opens in new window) provides technical details of the data carriers will be required to provide and describes:

• what data must be provided;
• when data must be provided; and
• briefly, the interfaces that will be available.