How does Spanish government track how long a person has been away from Spain?

[MarkInt]

I'm a Spanish Resident with a 10 year TIE who frequently travels between London and Gibraltar. Last week I returned to Spain from London via Gibraltar and the border guard attempted to stamp my passport. After a lengthy discussion he didn't but he did raise a valid question.

 

How does the Spanish government track how long a person has been away from Spain for purposes of TIE residency status if there are no entry/exit stamps in the passport?

 

Do I need to self-declare or is there a form I need to complete? Is there a link from the Spanish government website indicating that residents don't need to have their passports stamped and how or where they can declare an absence from Spain? Additionally, he was very courteous. In order to avoid future border issues. 

[Anderson]

As far as I know, the passports of Non-EU citizens should be spend at the border control when entering or leaving the country, the residency card is also scanned. Sometimes it doesn't happen due to not sure what reason. For sure they also can access to the flight information and track our movements.

[Givi]

The Spanish government tracks how long a person has been away from Spain through the use of the Foreigner's Identity Number (NIE). This number is assigned to all non-Spanish citizens who are legally residing in Spain and is used to track their movements within the country.

 

When someone enters or leaves Spain, they must present their NIE at the point of entry or exit. This allows the Spanish government to track how long a person has been away from Spain. The NIE also serves as an identification document when applying for visas, opening bank accounts, and other activities that require proof of identity.

[Olga]

@Givi, are you talking about NIE or TIE? I have never seen that someone presents a A4 paper entering Spain...

[Givi]

Yes, I mean the residency card - Tarjeta Identificacion de Extranjero.

Edited 26 minutes ago by Givi