9 February 2007
Tony Blair's ID card scheme is a double-whammy for the UK travel industry,
say campaigners [1].
Government plans to subject young travellers – predominantly 16-24 year olds
– to "intrusive interviews" [2] before granting them their first adult
passports will result in tens of thousands of missed journeys and chaos for
the budget travel sector this summer. Leaked documents show that the UK
Identity & Passport Service (UK IPS) is expecting as many as 1 in 4
first-time passport applicants to miss their trip [3] from this April
because of delays in processing applications under the new procedure, which
is being introduced as the first step towards interrogating the entire
population for the ID card scheme [4].
At the same time, inbound operators and UK tourist spots may find themselves
hit by tightening controls, including fingerprinting and registration of
addresses, affecting visitors and overseas residents from non-EU countries.
This is also linked to the ID scheme, which aims to track everyone in the
country for any length of time.
NO2ID says the measures in the UK Borders Bill, currently being debated in
Parliament, will put off [5] talented workers and wealthy visitors who could
go choose to somewhere else, and who will not put up with being treated like
"criminal suspects". Among those who could be repelled are the highest
spending visitors – those from the US & Pakistan [6] – and many thousands of
young professionals from the Commonwealth and Japan [7] who take extended
working trips, using the UK as a base for exploring Europe.
Phil Booth, NO2ID National Coordinator said of interrogations for new
passport holders:
"Clearly the Home Office thinks that gap-year students and young people
getting their first passport are soft targets; that they are easily pushed
around, and that they won't know that getting a passport used to be a
straightforward matter – before passports were being used to build a file on
you for an ID-card.
"Not only will these ID interrogations wreck a rite of passage for tens of
thousands, they will grossly inconvenience many thousands of families, and
drive travel agents and tour operators up the wall. Wise teenagers will get
a passport early – now! – and avoid being needlessly grilled, or imprisoned
in the UK when the IPS [8] doesn't like their answers."
Guy Herbert, NO2ID General Secretary said of the UK Borders Bill:
"It's nasty and it's stupid. In its haste to be seen 'doing something', the
Government has forgotten that most foreign visitors don't have to come here.
"Bully tourists and you'll have fewer tourists. Fingerprint Kylie and every
Aussie backpacker while you're about it, and what does that do for Britain's
reputation as a place to come and stay? Dr Reid is casting them all as
criminal suspects and suspected parasites. How friendly!"
– ENDS –
Notes for editors
1) NO2ID is the non-partisan national campaign against ID cards and the
database state. The National Union of Journalists is affiliated to NO2ID:
http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1595
2) Phrase used in COI briefing documents leaked to the Sunday Times – see
'Passport applicants will have to attend personal interviews', David
Leppard, Sunday Times, 10/12/06:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2496768,00.html
Applicants will have to provide extensive details about themselves on a form
which will then be used by UK IPS to comb other government and private
sector records and build a dossier on the individual. The person would then
be ordered to attend an interview at one of the UK IPS interrogation centres
across the country – 69 are due to open during the first phase of the ID
scheme, beginning at the end of March 2007 – where they would be asked
personal questions based on the assembled file. Failure to provide answers
that match what UK IPS officials think they know about you could result in
being denied a passport. Routine fingerprinting will be added to this
process in due course.
3) According to the same leaked COI briefing to advertising agencies charged
with the impossible task of selling the public inconvenience and expense for
no benefit whatsoever.
4) See the Home Office's "Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity
Scheme": http://www.identitycards.gov.uk/downloads/Strategic_Action_Plan.pdf
[900KB PDF]
5) A report from recruitment consultants Morgan McKinley in 2005 suggests
this is highly likely. See 'Working holiday visa changes deter Commonwealth
workers', Personnel Today, 19/5/05:
http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2005/05/19/29966/working-holiday-visa
-changes-deter-commonwealth-workers.html
6) See, e.g. 'UK tourism has record year despite London bombs', Liane Katz,
Guardian, 8/11/06:
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/article/2006/nov/08/travelnews.uknews
7) Approaching 50,000 a year. (Source: Morgan McKinley)
8) IPS is the *Identity* and Passport Service, an agency of the Home Office
set up on 1st April 2006 (this is NOT a joke, we wish it were) to take over
the Passport Office and administer a "national identity management scheme"
under the Identity Cards Act 2006.
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please
contact Phil Booth (National Coordinator, 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
