Customs & Excise confirms searches

A Customs and Excise spokesman confirmed on Thursday that such random checks were taking place. But he said he could not reveal details of the software being used to clean hard drives and check for pornography or say what it did precisely.

"There's a variety of hard drive cleaning software we can use and we've been using CD-Rom readers for some time to check disks for pornography," he told me. "We're targeting people who fit particular profiles," he added, without elaborating.

"Technology has moved on and this is us simply keeping abreast of what's happening. We do have some quite sophisticated porn removing and pc cleaning computer equipment in the department as well as experts who work with our investigation teams."

The spokesman said a number of paedophiles who had downloaded images from the Internet and stored them on their hard disk had been apprehended through Customs work.

But he could not cite any cases of this happening at border inspections. He said discoveries were made mainly by intercepting mail.

"We are asked to protect society from a number of things, including drugs and pornography, and we have the powers to search people and their belongings," he said.