Passport Interviews 2009

[AnOther]

I don't know how many know this but from 2009 ALL applicants for Passports, both new or renewal, will be required to attend an interview at one of 69 centers to be set up in the UK.

From The Times May 3rd 2006

"Face-to-face interviews lasting up to 20 minutes are to be compulsory for all passport applicants, even for renewals, a measure that will dramatically increase the time it takes to get a new passport.

Plans to interview first-time applicants have been known since last year and will be implemented later this year, when an estimated 600,000 adults will be required to attend a face-to-face interview with staff of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), the new name of the UK Passport Service, as of April 1.

But now it has emerged, buried in a IPS briefing, that all applicants - including those who are simply renewing a passport - will have to be interviewed in person by 2009.

The initiative is intended to reduce the number of fraudulent passport applications but will also mean that the amount of time it takes for most people to receive their passport will increase from ten to fifteen working days.

The additional delay will mostly be caused by the process of securing an interview at one of 69 "Authentication by Interview" (AbI) offices that are set to open around the country, starting later this year.

The IPS yesterday submitted their plans for the cities and towns where these offices are to be located, although the specific properties to be used have yet to be decided (see link to map above).

The location of the offices has been designed to make the journey for an interview less than half an hour for the vast majority of the population and less than an hour for people in more rural locations. Some remote communities will be outside this hour journey time but alternative arrangements are being made to allow interviews to take place using a secure webcam. Areas this affects include the Western Isles, the Orkneys and Shetland Islands, Anglesey, Pembrokeshire and the Scilly Isles.

The opening hours of the new AbI offices will vary, however all will be open on Saturdays. Most are not expected to open every weekday. On days that they do open, they will open from 8am to 6pm although the seven smallest offices will only open for two half-days a week.

Each interview is expected to last between 10 and 20 minutes and will focus on answering personal questions, such as where applicants have lived in the past. The personal interview is aimed at drastically reducing the number of fraudulent applications, three quarters of which are related to first-time adult applications."

Map of the locations http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,295266,00.jpg

I don't see France on there so what are expats supposed to do, French consul I suppose but that could mean a very substantial trip for many.

Personally I'm considering my Passport meeting with "an accident" sometime next year!

[Cjlaws]

It came up here [;-)]

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/823862/ShowPost.aspx

[AnOther]

Sorry, should have known it, teach me to search next time.

Suitably contrite..........

[The Riff-Raff Element]

You could always apply to become natrualised as a French citizen. This

would avoid the need to apply for a UK passport ever again. I'm toying

with the idea on the basis it could save me a fortune....

[AnOther]

[quote user="Jon"]I'm toying with the idea on the basis it could save me a fortune....[/quote]Well you can't just leave that hanging..............do please elaborate.

[Sprogster]

I believe this is a European Union wide measure, as the only way biometric details can be checked that they belong to the applicant, is if you turn up in person.

Apparently, a lot of passport fraud occurs where criminal gangs obtain passports for illegal immigrants by paying a legitimate EU National who does not have a passport to apply for one in their name, but submit the photo/biometricdetails of the illegal immigrant who is paying the gang for a fraudulent passport.

On BBC TV recently a reporter was able to obtain in a few weeks passports for her, from every country in the EU with the exception of two. France included!!

[verviale]

Well I think we should have national identity cards, with our finger prints on, that way passports would be just a formality to travel abroad, I object to having an interview when I was born  a U.K citizen and I am quite happy to have my finger prints,eye pupil, anything but to start interviewing people it is just creating more jobs and more fees.Why would I object to finger prints, I have nothing to hide.Next thing they will be suggesting microchips.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="ErnieY"][quote user="Jon"]I'm toying with the idea on the

basis it could save me a fortune....[/quote]Well you can't just leave

that hanging..............do please elaborate.[/quote]

Ah - there are five of us in this familiy. Now, children need renewels

every five years, which adds up to SEVEN special trips to Paris alone,

where I assume these interviews would occur before they are 16, plus

myself and my wife. Five hours there and back plus at least one night

in hotels, AND I have three daughters, so (possibly) shopping expenses.

Our prefecture is 45 drive away, and a trip there can be combined with

all kinds of routine jobs. Plus the shops in La Roche are nothing to

make the heart beat faster.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="verviale"]Well I think we should have national identity

cards, with our finger prints on, that way passports would be just a

formality to travel abroad, I object to having an interview when I was

born  a U.K citizen and I am quite happy to have my finger

prints,eye pupil, anything but to start interviewing people it is just

creating more jobs and more fees.Why would I object to finger prints, I

have nothing to hide.Next thing they will be suggesting

microchips.[/quote]

Everyone has something to hide. Or rather things about them that they

would rather the World at large knew nothing about. ID cards are a

farce that offer plenty of opportunity for fraud, no matter what is

included on them.

The microchip is quite a good idea, but I always thought that a barcode

on the forehead would be better. Much less easy to remove without its

removal being noticed.

ID fraud is not solved by cheap solutions - cards, for example. It probably won't be solved entirely

by interviews, but, expensive and incovenient as these will be, they

will probably be very effective in reducing the incidence of this

crime..

[Iceni]

I don't think that I want to be neutralised so I guess that my passport may have to lapse. This means that sometime in the next 5 years I have to find a substitute document to prove who I am. Other than that cannot see a downside to going without.

John

not

[Val_2]

I would have thought the most sensible thing in this case would be to have interviews for foreigners done at the regional Prefecture/Bureau des Etrangers where we used to get our Carte de Séjours done in the old days. I am certainly not making the 3.5hr by train or 6hr by car trip to Paris for a passport, would rather apply for a french nationality like my kids are thinking of doing.

[cooperlola]

Mine's just about to expire so will get in before this starts.  By the time it's out of date, hopefully I will also be a French national (or dead, of course!)[:)]

[Will]

I remember seeing somewhere that overseas passport holders could be dealt with by their nearest consulate, which is not necessarily Paris, though passports would still be issued from there. I don't think this has been properly thought through for overseas residents, though, so if it ever comes to fruition something will have to be done for us.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Jon"][quote user="verviale"]Well I think we should have national identity cards, with our finger prints on, that way passports would be just a formality to travel abroad, I object to having an interview when I was born  a U.K citizen and I am quite happy to have my finger prints,eye pupil, anything but to start interviewing people it is just creating more jobs and more fees.Why would I object to finger prints, I have nothing to hide.Next thing they will be suggesting microchips.[/quote]

Everyone has something to hide. Or rather things about them that they would rather the World at large knew nothing about. ID cards are a farce that offer plenty of opportunity for fraud, no matter what is included on them.

The microchip is quite a good idea, but I always thought that a barcode on the forehead would be better. Much less easy to remove without its removal being noticed.

ID fraud is not solved by cheap solutions - cards, for example. It probably won't be solved entirely by interviews, but, expensive and incovenient as these will be, they will probably be very effective in reducing the incidence of this crime..
[/quote]

I also am in favour of ID cards but thats not the real issue. Interviewing people to get passports is a system that will have very little effect for the sums of money involved. It's the existing system and the abuse of it by those running it that is the problem. For example, if you apply to renew your passport in France it says quite clearly on the application form ( http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/NotesC1,0.pdf ) that your new photo and application form must be signed by a professional person who has known you for 2 years which is actualy quite hard to get in France because nobody wants to do it. If you phone the help number of the consulate in Paris they tell you not to bother with a signature. It worked for me and for my wife with a two year gape between both renewals which shows its not just a one off.

You can fast track your passport application (just like a driving licence) in the UK via the Post Office (has to be a main post office I believe) who check the documentation for a fee. So if you have got that far you have all the correct paperwork you require, its been seen and approved by an offical and thats it, you get your passport. So what exactly is a passport interview going to uncover? You have already supplied all the paperwork etc and its been approved as being OK and not a forgery.

This is really an added security feature demanded by the Americans so they can keep tabs on things (The establishment of biometric passport systems was a requirement mandated by the US Congress for those countries wishing to remain in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). With somewhere between 4.5 and 5 million British Passport holders entering the US every year under this arrangement, remaining in the VWP is a key objective.). The new passports with the chip (my wife has one) is only to aid the American system, it does nothing for the UK or the EU. Personally I think all passport applicatons should be done by visiting the post office. When the passport is ready you should go back to the post office to collect it and show the same documents again. It is just as good a security feature and will cost a lot less money.

Interviewing people for passports and having ID cards will never stop ID fraud or terrorists but it will make it a lot harder for them to opperate. What it will do is make day to day life a lot easier as it is a form of official identification that you can use. In general people do like it, just as an example look back on the old thread about CDS's being stopped for UK people in France and how many said it would be missed as it was an excellent method of ID for cheques and things.

Still it's all a bit emotive really because the government will do what ever they want to do and thats the way it will be. Somebody has to pay and we all know who. Bet the cost of a passport goes up next year. But there is a good side, if you are born before 2nd September 1929 you get your passport free.

[Coco]

I've just sent my passport off to Paris for renewal at a cost of 140€ plus an additional 15€ to get it sent back quicker.  A British policeman, who occasionally does dock duty at the Channel ports, told me that I would be able to use my carte de sejour to get into the UK but on checking this with ports and airlines this is not so and I think he was confused by the fact that a CDS actually looks very similar to the French national ID card, which French citizens CAN use to get into the UK.  I do understand the need for security but I am a little miffed to think that a French person (or in fact any EU national with an ID Card) doesn't need to have a passport to get into the UK but as a British citizen I DO!  As far as I'm concerned there were more stringent checks on me to get my CDS here in France than my British passport and as it bears the same information about me as a French ID card it's all a bit of a farce really and yet again, boils down to a money-making policy rather than a security one.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Quillan"]The microchip is quite a good idea....[/quote]But woefully INSECURE. There was a programme on TV a few week back showing how easy it was to harvest the information from them, something you would find impossible to do with the current style unless you actually had possession of it.

[quote user="Quillan"]This is really an added security feature demanded by the Americans so they can keep tabs on things[/quote]Well I for one, along with the vast majority of the UK populace, have no desire or intention of ever visiting the good 'ole US of A so let US keep our perfecly adequate document and save the time money and aggrevation.

[quote user="Quillan"]Still it's all a bit emotive really because the government will do what ever they want to do and thats the way it will be[/quote]And there is the "English disease", grumbling compliance and apathy. Faced with such draconian measures the French would probably send 3 tractors to Calais, the government would cave in within 24 hours and everybody would go home happy!

[Will]

I've got a microchip, and a passport, but I'm only a small fluffy dog.

[Cassis]

I've got lots of chips, but I'm only a sausage.

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="Coco"] it's all a bit of a farce really and yet again, boils down to a money-making policy rather than a security one.[/quote]

Totally agree, especially for children. My daughter has had her passport since the age of 3 months - she is 5 now and when we went back to the UK in November it was a joke at the passport control - there is no way she could have been identified from her photo.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Coco"] and yet again, boils down to a money-making policy rather than a security one.[/quote]

Dear me no - anything that involves employing smelly human work units

rather that computers does not make money. Therefore this must be a

real policy to improve security. Otherwise they would not do it.

[David]

Strictly speaking, as a UK national you do not need a UK passport to enter the UK.  You only have to convince the imigration that you are a genuine UK national.  My daughter did this once with an electricity bill and a driving licence (without photo).  She also had a group of friends vouching for her, and she chose a male immigration officer and batted her eyelids at him.  She got through.

The difficult part if travelling without a passport is convincing the carrier to take you to UK in the first place.

David

[Mistral]

[quote user="Susan"]  My daughter has had her passport since the age of 3 months - she is 5 now and when we went back to the UK in November it was a joke at the passport control - there is no way she could have been identified from her photo.
[/quote]

My eldest daughter's  French ID card photo was taken when she was 10 days old. She is now 9. The ID card is technically still valid for another 5 months. As you say, there is no way she can be identified from the photo. The mairie (while laughing) told us that we could change the photo at any time (probably by getting a new card, since they are free)

Daughter number 2 had a French passport  at the age of 2 months (long story) We had to fill in definitive details such as height (50cms) and eyes (blue) Luckily, they didn't want to know about hair (none) So far, no-one has picked up on the fact that we are travelling with a 1.10m, brown-eyed child.

[Cassis]

Jude and I had a quandary like this when visiting France on a day trip with my sister-in-law and her erstwhile boyfiend in the eighties.  An amiable but absent minded chap, Richard had forgotten his passport but we boarded the ferry for France regardless; we toyed with the idea of hiding him in the boot but Jude said if we did that then she was not getting in the car with us.  In the end Richard sat in the back seat and we crossed our fingers not to get stopped at French customs.  Naturally, we were stopped.  Richard showed them his boarding pass in lieu of passport but they politely pointed to the large print thereupon, stating that it was not valid for entry into France.  We played dumb (easily done in Richard's case) as a queue of cars built up behind us.  In the end the French customs gave us up as hopeless cases and let us through.  On the way back we were stopped by English customs at Dover.  They asked Richard how on earth he had got into France without a passport, shook their heads in despair and waved us through without any proof of Richard's ID at all.  Not sure how that would play nowadays.

[Deimos]

[quote user="Quillan"]

This is really an added security feature demanded by the Americans so they can keep tabs on things ..... The new passports with the chip (my wife has one) is only to aid the American system, it does nothing for the UK or the EU.

[/quote]

One aspect to US control of movement around the world is that they err to the side of "their caution". If they happen to identify an innocent person as a terrorist it does not bother them too much. Without getting too political, I think mis-identification of a few people causing them to be arrested (and then ignored by the UK government - or having their British citizenship revoked") does not concern them.

[quote user="Quillan"]

... because the government will do what ever they want to do and thats the way it will be.

[/quote]

It is disappointing but I agree. UK government keeps going on about we need public debate about this that or the other yet they then totally ignore public sentiments and just do as they want anyway.

I cannot see how the interviewing system could ever be implemented in practice. It would take so many people and cost so much. I suppose the only aspect that might make it viable is that so few people would be able to afford a passport that demand would just not be there. I think Quillan's "Post Office" idea would work if people could find a Post Office that was still open !! - but it might work provided that there was nobody working in a Post Office who sympathised with any terrorist causes, nobody who needed a bit of extra cash, etc.

Historically the government has always been a bit of a lumbering dinosaur with regards to technology (something that is likely to continue). Given that, the "hackers" and criminals will always be at least a step or two ahead of any government solution.

With regard to ID cards I would like to know what "problem" they are meant to address. Initially it was terrorism, but then the obvious failings in that plan were pointed out so it changed to "ID theft" until people quickly demonstrated that it would actually make ID theft easier, etc.. I have no problem with ID cards provided that somebody can give me a good reason (other than gov. income). As I have not yet come across any good reason for them I remain strongly against.

Ian