I strongly suspect* almost all records are captured on Databases these days and have done so for decades with several data subsets are shared between nations in cooperation agreements.
its when anomolies occurs that prompts further questions.
The days of a two part arrival/departure card in your passport are fasing into history. *(with exceptions of course ).
But your passport is your proof, when they are judging you against what the computer says, if you stack up and computer says yes..off you go, *which is most people.
But specifically with European travel, there is no doubting the queuing can be considerably longer than it is for EU arrivals.
I recall back to early 90’s Poland, arriving by train at 2am, a border guard, looking not too unlike Dick Strawbridge, put on his spectacles, produced an A3 sized, 2inch thick hardback hand written book of names of wanted persons in Poland and proceeded to check my name against it, taking some 10 minutes, before passing my passport to a 20 something female in uniform to stamp it.
* caveats just for the pedants.
So, how it works:
Right now, each country keeps their own records of entries and exits. They aren't usually shared, so when you cross the Schengen border, they have to rely on what they can see. They can see if there's an 'alert' about you (i.e. information on the Schengen database, which includes details of criminal records and so on), but they usually don't know when you've actually crossed the border in the past if it was in another country. For instance, Poland keeps systematic entry/exit details, but this isn't shared with Slovenia.
The problem is that stamps are only of an informational character and (unlike the UK), do not have any legal power. So, if you can prove to the satisfaction of the border police that you haven't overstayed, then it's fine, regardless of what's in the passport or not. Flight tickets are generally accepted proof, but you can produce anything to help - for instance, a Google Maps timeline.
This *will* change in the next few months. It's supposed to be launched in February, but it's likely that it'll be in the second half of 2022. All entries and exits will be logged and stored, combined with details of residence permits and so on. The end result is that the computer will automatically tell the border police information such as - how many days they have left, whether they've overstayed now (or in the past), whether they have a residence permit or not, etc etc.
The only issue? It requires everyone to be systematically checked. Pre-Covid, it was quite normal in CDG and FRA to only have a visual check of the passport due to the amount of people travelling.
But going back to the stamps issue - they, by themselves, do not prove anything. My passport currently thinks I'm in Croatia...
www.chronicle.gi
