Am I somehow exempt from ETA and EES?

Question

I live in the UK with Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). I do not have a UK passport. I have a passport of a Schengen country.

It appears that the ETA to (re-)enter the UK does not apply to me because my stay in the UK is not temporary. See [1].
But likewise I don't think I need to apply for an EES to enter the Schengen area either, seeing as I am still technically a European citizen. See [2].

It feels a bit like I am falling through the cracks here, and I dare say I cannot be the only one wondering about this.

Luckily I have no immediate plans to travel between the UK and continental Europe, so I have plenty of time to get myself informed.
The question is: is my interpretation of the rules set out above correct and I indeed do not need an ETA nor an EES?

Answer 1

Your interpretation of the rules seems correct. EU citizens definitely do not need an ETIAS or any form of prior authorization to enter the EU and your border crossings should not be tracked in the EES. As you're not a British citizen, your right to enter the UK is perhaps a little weaker but you definitely aren't a visitor and therefore do not require an ETA. You may however need an eVisa, which is another way for the British authorities to verify your status before allowing you to reach the border.

Leaving aside the details of your status in the UK, not having to get any form of authorization in advance is not that unusual. Considering the case of dual nationals might show why. In Europe, there are probably millions of people who hold multiple citizenships (say EU citizens who are also British citizens or citizens of an American country) and can therefore leave and enter both countries / areas without being treated as visitors nor requiring any form of prior authorization. In other parts of the world (e.g. Africa), broader visa requirements and stronger restrictions on dual citizenship make that less common but not completely unheard of.

Obviously, the ETA, EES, and ETIAS are just being rolled out. So while something like that has existed in the US since 2009, travelling without prior authorization is also completely normal for the hundreds of millions of people who do not need a visa to enter the Schengen area (e.g. US, Brazilian, Mexican, or Japanese citizens to name the largest groups).

Dual nationals therefore only “fall through the crack” from the perspective of a total surveillance of all international travel away from the border, which was historically impossible and still isn't where the law is. And even that is only partly true, in many countries, Advanced Passenger Information (API) data is already being collected by transporters and shared with the state even for citizens.

Answer 2

Am I somehow exempt from ETA and EES?

Of course you are.

Systems such as ETA and ETIAS (not EES) are designed to serve as a lightweight pre-screening for visa-exempt travelers -- lightweight in that it is not as thorough as the screening of a visa applicant. You are not traveling with a visa exemption when you travel to the UK because you have ILR. You are not traveling with a visa exemption when you travel to the Schengen area because you are an EU citizen or a citizen of a non-EU Schengen country. There's no need to qualify your citizenship with "technically"; you are a European citizen, plain and simple.

There are no cracks to fall through here; in neither instance do you belong to any group of travelers who are required to apply.

In a comment, you wrote

I am not so much worried about being tracked. This question is more about being refused entry by border controls. Going either way. Having a passport alone is no longer sufficient.

In your situation, for the Schengen area, that statement is incorrect: as a citizen of a Schengen country, a passport alone most certainly is sufficient. For the UK, the statement arises from an incorrect assumption: you aren't traveling to the UK with a passport alone but rather with a passport and ILR. If you don't have a physical document showing your ILR, you still have a record in some database somewhere that shows you have ILR, similar to ETA, which is also primarily a record in a database.

Note that the information at the second link in the question applies "If you are travelling to a country in the Schengen area using a UK passport," so it does not apply to you. I suppose you realize this, since you offer it in support of the proposition that you are not subject to EES, but I think it bears explicit mention. A more authoritative source in support of that proposition, which furthermore addresses it directly, is https://travel-europe.europa.eu/ees/whom-does-ees-not-apply_en:

The EES does not apply to:

• Nationals of the European countries using the EES, as well as Cyprus and Ireland
• ...

For ETIAS, https://travel-europe.europa.eu/etias/who-should-apply_en:

Who does not need an ETIAS travel authorisation

You will not need an ETIAS travel authorisation if you are:

• A national of a European country requiring ETIAS
• ...