Travellers have been able to avoid taking a PCR test by taking advantage of a loophole in the system, it has been reported.
According to The I, it’s possible for people to re-enter old booking reference codes when completing their passenger locator forms when they arrive back in the UK, if their previous result was negative.
This means holidaymakers can avoid quarantining upon arrival, and the loophole enables codes to be shared between different people, avoiding one of the measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.
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Everybody arriving in the UK must take a PCR test, a rule reintroduced by the government this week as more cases of the Omicron variant are identified across the world.
Travellers must also complete a passenger locator form, which needs to include the booking reference numbers for any Covid-29 tests you need to take after arriving in the UK.
On the government’s website it states that it is a criminal offence to provide false or deliberately misleading information when filling out a passenger locator form.
You can be fined, imprisoned or both if the information is inaccurate.
Customers are issued with a unique code after purchasing their PCR test, but they are able to re-use old codes several times on their form, The I reports.
Natalie Kenny, CEO of PCR test provider BioGrad Diagnostics and a member of the Laboratory and Testing Industry Organisation (LTIO), told The I that they had reported the error in the system to the Government last week.
She said: "These people are about to get on airplane with loads of other people and have no intention of doing any testing."
The UK Health Security Agency said in a statement: "There are legitimate reasons why an individual might re-use a code, such as last-minute changes to travel plans.
“Re-use of codes accounts for only a very small number of cases, and UKHSA has systems in place to detect and prevent the small proportion of re-use believed to be illegitimate."
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