10 December 2006
For immediate release – 10/12/06
In a document leaked to the Sunday Times [1], the Home Office Identity and
Passports Service (IPS) states that from March 26th next year children as
young as 16 [2] will be made to attend an intrusive "interview" at one of 69
interrogation centres across the UK, involving a round trip of up to 80
miles at their own cost. The request for proposals from advertising agencies
suggests that one in four new applicants will fail to get their passport in
time to travel [3].
The interviews with officials, which are expected to last around 20 minutes,
are intended to probe the personal background of each applicant "to ensure
that the identity actually belongs to the individual making the
application". An official file will be collated on each person from various
sources, and they will then face cross examination by officials to check out
their story against it.
Phil Booth, NO2ID's [4] National Coordinator said:
"If you're planning on having a gap year, be prepared to answer a few
questions.
"The Government is setting itself up to tell everyone who they are. And they
are starting with impressionable teenagers. Submit to a grilling, and match
what we think we know about you, or you won't be able to travel, is what
'Authentication by Interview' really means. This is just a glimpse of the
"papers, please" ID regime that is to come.
"Desperate to avoid another humiliating meltdown of the passport service,
and wary of tipping its hand on ID cards, [5] the Government now intends to
burn taxpayers' money in the millions propagandising your children to
believe the state is the final arbiter of their identity."
-ENDS-
Notes for editors:
1. 'Passport applicants will have to attend personal interviews' by David
Leppard, Sunday Times, 10/12/06 -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2496768,00.html
2. The document, issued by COI, states that some 300,000 first time
applicants for passports fall between the ages of 16 and 24. This is almost
exactly double the number of "new citizens", or applicants for British
citizenship, that apply for a passport each year.
3. The document also lays out "communication challenges" that involve
dealing with a fourfold increase in the time taken to issue a passport (from
10 days to 6 weeks); greater inconvenience; no 'fast track' service for
first passports; further increases in the price of all passports; and "a
significant change in customer experience" that will "require changes in
customer behaviour" – as "over 25% of all applicants make their arrangements
less than 2 weeks before travel."
4. NO2ID is the non-partisan national campaign against ID cards and the
database state. See http://www.no2id.net
5. The document states that a previous campaign was pulled, "due to
sensitivities around the ID cards bill passage of legislation."
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please
contact Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net)
on 07974 230 839, Guy Herbert (General Secretary,
general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308, or Michael Parker (Press
Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166.
The NO2ID Campaign
Box 412
19-21 Crawford Street
London W1H 1PJ
enquiries@no2id.net
Tel: 07005 800 651
Press: click here
