It has been a week since international arrivals to Latvia have had to fill in forms stating their personal information, travel history, whereabouts and other information gathered to help combat the spread of COVID-19.
However, the system has received criticism from travellers on several counts, including from transit passengers, and questions have been raised about when an electronic system might be available instead.
In principle I can understand why Latvia demands health declarations from people who transit through Riga airport. But I can't understand how come can't they create an electronic version of it but force people run around in foreign cities looking for places where they can print.
— Evelyn Kaldoja (@EvelynKaldoja) July 21, 2020
Both passenger carriers and the state agencies processing the data are hoping for a faster introduction of the electronic system, originally slated to take several weeks. The police receive around 2,000 questionnaires every day, and epidemiologists have received information about 15,000 arrivals.
Passenger carriers are responsible for distributing questionnaires to travellers. For example, on flights, they are supposed to be issued by the flight crew, however an anonymous Ryanair passenger contacted Latvian Radio saying that when flying from Vienna on Sunday, the questionnaires were not distributed on the aircraft or afterwards at the airport.
The questionnaires were also not distributed on another aircraft of the same company according to 'Agnese', who returned from Great Britain this week.
"No-one asked me if I had filled out a questionnaire, no one gave it to me. I also did not receive any email with the questionnaire before the flight. But when I arrived at the airport and went to passport control, I was asked if I had filled it in,” said the passenger, who then had to fill in a form upon arrival.
According to Latvian Radio questionnaires are not shared on Ryanair flights, because the airline follows a contactless policy. Therefore, these passengers are met at the airport by representatives of the ground handling department of Riga Airport.
"As we have found in this process there are passengers who did not fill in the questionnaires before the flight or during the flight, [so] we will also have places to fill in the questionnaires before going to the luggage hall. Of course, there may be cases where such a passenger arrives at the border guard. Then the blank questionnaires are also available there and a person can fill them in,” explained Laura Karnite, a representative of Riga Airport.
Currently, information on arrivals is only collected on old-fashioned paper forms. Meanwhile, an electronic solution is being sought.
Questionnaires from high-risk countries go to the State Police. About two thousand documents are received there a day. In turn, questionnaires from relatively safe countries are sent to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC). "So far, we have received about 15,000 completed questionnaires.They are stored for 30 days. Data is not processed unnecessarily. But, for example, if a bus arrives in Latvia and after a while it is found that there was someone sick, then it is possible to find and warn all passengers about the risks of infection,” explained Ilze Arāja, a representative of the SPKC.
According to the Ministry of Transport the electronic system could be decided upon within the next couple of weeks.
"The developers we are in contact with now say it should be around the beginning of the month. But since we do not have to apply public procurement law, we would still like to receive a number of offers so that the decision can be taken in a balanced way,” said Dins Merirands, Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry.
Electronic questionnaires could initially only be available to air passengers, as the passenger registration system is more regulated in aviation.
Concerns about the questionnaire system were expressed this week by the Data State Inspectorate which said it doubted that the mountain of paper could be effectively used and to processed for its stated purposes.
