WRITTEN ON August 29th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Identity, What do we want?
I’ve just had a thoroughly unpleasant letter from Tony Mercer and Isabel Hunt, who work for the authoritarian and over-expensive IPS division of the accredited data nitwits at Home Office. Tony and Isabel ask me to “cascade the message to my wider audiences”, which I’m content to do. A problem shared and all that. Anyway, it’s like this…..
Dear Stakeholder
The implementation of the National Identity Scheme moves a step closer with the launch of Identity Cards for Foreign Nationals in November 2008.
Oh hurrah. Why not take a tip from that other benighted project ContactPoint and delay it all even more?
[blah blah blah] The Government’s National Identity Scheme (NIS) gives people for the first time the ability to prove who they are in a secure and convenient way, protecting themselves and their families against identity fraud, crime, illegal immigration, illegal working and terrorism.
But, hang on –
1. I dont need to prove who I am. I’m perfectly well aware who I am think you. And I never have to prove it
2. Anyway if I needed to I already have an over-priced passport (plus quite pointless, expensive and short-lived ones for very small children who look nothing like their photographs of 18 months ago)
3. eek! Crime! Illegal working! Terrorism! Argh! Immigration! I’m scared. Thank heavens my partner will be forced to register for one of these obnoxious cards. That’ll stop it all. (Thought: will her having a card stop paedophilia also??)
Then there’s threatening stuff about the dire consequences for employers if they dont fall in with the new rules for points-based scoring
PBS requires colleges, employers and others who benefit from migration to sponsor skilled or temporary migrants coming to the UK. They will need a licence to do so. The sponsor will have to keep proper records of the migrants they have sponsored, including their contact details and, in time, a copy of their identity card, and supply those to UKBA on request.
When the card is designated under the Identity Cards Act 2006 it will be linked to the National Identity Register (NIR).
Man, that sounds like a massive and tedious additional admin burden. But no!
The identity card will help businesses reduce administrative burden….blah blah blah
They say it will help! Is that an unsupported assertion, or does the Scheme help with a problem business says it has?
Apparently there are benefits for individuals also:
For the individual it will make it easier to:
provide proof of their right to live in the UK
prove their identity safely and quickly where and whenever this is required
get a job – as potential employers can use the card to check future employees identity and employment status quickly and easily
The only conceivable advantages I can see are about overcoming additional burdens imposed by a bossy bureaucracy.
We’re invited if we have any questions to contact the Identity Management team at identitymanagement@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
I must say I can think of a few…
FULL TEXT:
Identity Management Directorate
Identity Cards for Foreign Nationals
5th Floor
Whitgift C
15 Wellesley Road
Croydon
CR20 1ATEmail identitymanagement@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Web www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.ukAugust 2008
Ref: Identity Card for Foreign Nationals
Dear Stakeholder
The implementation of the National Identity Scheme moves a step closer with the launch of Identity Cards for Foreign Nationals in November 2008. We are writing to give you some background to the scheme and to keep you updated with its rollout. May we also take the opportunity to ask you to cascade the message to your wider audiences.
Securing our Borders through the National Identity Scheme
The Government’s National Identity Scheme (NIS) gives people for the first time the ability to prove who they are in a secure and convenient way, protecting themselves and their families against identity fraud, crime, illegal immigration, illegal working and terrorism.
The Identity Card for Foreign Nationals is the first part of the NIS and will be rolled out on an incremental basis over the next three years to all foreign nationals. From 25th November 2008, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) will start issuing compulsory identity cards to foreign nationals who apply for further leave to remain in the UK within certain categories (student and marriages/civil partnerships). This will help keep our borders strong, and will provide additional protection against illegal immigration and illegal employment. Identity cards for foreign nationals will build on existing safeguards which strengthen our borders, like fingerprint visa checks before people travel to the UK, a strong new force at the border and the future introduction of new technology to count people in and out of the
country. From November 2008, fingerprints and facial images will be captured at six centres around the UK as part of the process of making a decision about an individual’s right to be in the country. The robustness of the UKBA process and technology has been tested through a three month pilot phase; where around 10,000 foreign nationals (student and marriage/civil partnership categories) have had their biometrics enrolled as part of their application.
Employers need to be aware that under the Government’s new Points Based System (PBS), businesses need to be licensed as sponsors by the UKBA before they can bring in any skilled foreign workers from outside the EEA. Businesses found to be employing illegal workers with no right to work in the UK face fines and even a prison sentence. For any employer who breaks the rules and employs foreign nationals with no right to work in the UK, the outcome is clear — huge fines are already being handed out by the UKBA.Recent figures released by the Home Office show that between 29 February and the end of April the new regime of civil penalties has already seen 137 notices issued, equating to more than half a million pounds worth of fines.
Use of the Identity Card
The card provides evidence of the holder’s nationality, identity and status in the UK. It will provide information that will help public agencies; employers and educational establishments more easily understand the migrant’s entitlements. It will also be an additional simple form of confirming identity and right to work and access public services for individuals who have entered the UK. This will enable them to work or study legitimately under the Government’s new points based system, which is being rolled out from this year.Importance of the card
Taking an image of a person’s face and fingerprints and then locking them to that person’s details on a national register, provides a very safe and secure way of identifying that person and helps to combat illegal working and reduce illegal immigration to the UK. The card will provide a convenient, extremely secure and widely accepted way for any foreign national to prove their immigration status.Checking the identity card
Employers will check the card visually. The applicants entitlement to work, study or access public funds will be captured in the “remarks” section of the card. Guidance on checking the validity of the identity cards will be provided in September to ensure all stakeholders are familiar with its design and recognise the card when it is presented to them. UKBA will have an Employers Verification Service (telephone) which can be used by organisations if there is concern over the validity of the card. This information will be provided with the guidance.Benefits of the card
PBS requires colleges, employers and others who benefit from migration to sponsor skilled or temporary migrants coming to the UK. They will need a licence to do so. The sponsor will have to keep proper records of the migrants they have sponsored, including their contact details and, in time, a copy of their identity card, and supply those to UKBA on request. When the card is designated under the Identity Cards Act 2006 it will be linked to the National Identity Register (NIR).
The identity card will help businesses:
reduce administrative burden
make it easier for employers, sponsors and others to check entitlements
ensure those who are here illegally do not receive benefits and other privileges of living in the UKFor the individual it will make it easier to:
provide proof of their right to live in the UK
prove their identity safely and quickly where and whenever this is required
get a job – as potential employers can use the card to check future employees identity and employment status quickly and easilyWhat changes will be involved with the introduction of the card?
The introduction of these cards does not require organisations to make changes to the checks they currently undertake for foreign nationals to be in the UK. It will replace existing vignettes and other immigration status documents which are not as secure as the new identity card.Returning to the UK
When a foreign national, who has already been granted further leave to remain and is issued with an identity card, returns to the UK, they will be required to show their Identity Card at the border (together with their national passport) to confirm their immigration status. Checks at the border will include visual checks of the card, use of card readers and increasingly further biometric checks.Who will be issued the card from November 2008?
From 25 November 2008, the issuing of identity cards will apply initially to non-EEA nationals who are granted further leave to remain under the student and marriage/civil partnership categories. Other applicants will still receive a vignette in their passport, resulting in both systems running in parallel in the first few years of the programme. The roll out strategy “Introducing Identity Cards for Foreign Nationals” published in March 2008 details the volumes of foreign nationals that will be applying for leave to enter and remain, to have a card, within three years of the rollout. By 2014/15 90 per cent of foreign nationals will have an identity card.Following the issuing of Identity Cards to foreign nationals, the National Identity Scheme roll-out will continue with Identity Cards for workers in sensitive roles and locations like airports next year. In 2010 voluntary Identity Cards will be offered to young people and in 2011/12, voluntary identity cards will be offered to large numbers of the British public.
What’s next?
We will be issuing guidance for checking the card in late September. The guidance will provide details on the design of the card, its use, and physical security features. In the meantime, if you have any questions please contact the Identity Management team at identitymanagement@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk.
Yours sincerelyTony Mercer / Isabel Hunt
Identity Management Director (UKBA) / Executive Director of Business Development and
Marketing (IPS)
17 Responses to “Benighted ID scheme to hit foreign nationals soon…”
Non-EEA foreign nationals already have to have ARCs. That has been the case for years. And yet we have illegal immigration. IPS ID cards are just like ARCs. So we shall continue to have illegal immigration. So why introduce this new scheme? There is no known answer to that question.
“IPS ID cards are just like ARCs”. Except that they’re not as good. ARCs use proper “rolled print” fingerprints. IPS ID cards use a glorified photocopying technology called “flat print” fingerprinting. Rolled prints are admissible as evidence in court. Flat prints aren’t. The first legal challenge brought by an IPS ID cardholder will bring the whole house down.
The implication of this latest IPS announcement is that state benefits will be dependent on producing an IPS ID card. State benefits are the responsibility of DWP. DWP have made no such announcement about the need for IPS ID cards. In fact, they have denied the need for them. IPS are pretending.
The governement have made several attempts over the years to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. They have all failed. IPS ID cards will follow in that long line of failure. Somehow, the government have to raise their game. Alastair Darling’s recent interview with the Guardian is a sign of things to come. Announcing that the economy faces its worst prospects for 60 years could reduce the pull factor.
“All non-EEA nationals already need ARCs.” Not quite. Americans don’t. Canadians don’t. Australians don’t … So will they all need IPS ID cards? IPS suggest that they will, at least there is no hint of exceptions. They’re going to have to backtrack …
“DWP have denied that state benefits will be dependent on having an ID card”. Not quite. What Dave Birch observed was rather that:
(a) Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, didn’t know whether benefits will be tied to ID cards, and
(b) It was Meg Hillier of the Home Office who denied any link.
It was the Department of Health who explicitly denied the need for an ID card to get non-emergency state healthcare.
When IPS claim that there is a link, between healthcare, other benefits and ID cards, they are pretending.
IPS have never done anything useful. They have never succeeded at anything. No-one trusts them. The banks and the major retailers don’t trust them, DWP and the DoH don’t trust them. Neither do normal people.
There must be some trepidation at IPS just now, in advance of their non-EEA nationals initiative. Their lazy and expensive incompetence is going to be displayed to a wider public, to wider mirth and wider anger.
Click on Word, IPS, open file type CV, …
James Hall, Chief Executive of IPS and Registrar General of England and Wales, used to have a proper job. He was Managing Partner of Accenture UK. He must rue the day he ever left, to preside over the farce which is the NIS, a footnote in the history of failure.
I dunno. Civil service jobs are pretty safe just now compared to the old cut’n’thrust. Civil service vs being in charge of benighted health project at Accenture. Which is the frying pan and which is the fire?
It is all a bit cuckoo, isn’t it. William, given your knowledge of practice in the civil service, would you be able to outline how people get into the frame of mind where they think this is all a good idea?
I did ask a psychologist who observed IPS in action about this.
He opined that it was classic “groupthink” as first coined to describe the Kennedy administration around the Bay of Pigs. Powerful leader with poor listening skills starts to obsess about some simplistic solution, surrounds self with yes men (“mindguards” as opposed to bodyguards, ie people who prevent any alternate thinking penetrating the outer shell).
Result: disaster, foreseen by everyone else, which comes as an incomprehensible complete shock to those involved.
Hm. Wikipedia gives an earlier derivation, but mentions the Bay of Pigs example.
Wikipedia gives the “classic symptoms” of groupthink as –
1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mindguards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
That’s hauntingly familiar. I wonder if part of the problem is the long chain of disconnect down to IPS. The people who know it’s going to be horrible are kept behind glass when even mid-tier management from Home Office come by. Anyway, that’s how I imagine it. If the true diagnosis is a nasty case of groupthink, then what can stop it?
Comments 11 and 12:
I did ask a psychologist who observed IPS in action about this.
He opined that it was classic “groupthink” …
The diagnosis looks pretty convincing. Did the psychologist have a prescription? How can the patient be cured? What is the prognosis?
I’ve brought this rather funny webpage to the attention of Tony Mercer. He didn’t seem terribly impressed!
Cheers Mike. Yeah right. He’s happy to send me spam emails but too huffy to drop me a line? BTW, I did email the address given with some questions. They just ignore you.
Guys – you’re taking our dosh for your salaries and pensions, and doing something really annoying – no, worse than that: illiberal and corrosive. Then you get all “unimpressed”. Well excuse me.
I did email the address given with some questions. They just ignore you.
It’s odd. They ignore me, too. Does anyone have enough “leverage” to demand an engaged response? We may soon see.
What happens when government officials break their own rules – and UK law?
Someone I know was refused a UK student visa by the UK High Commission in their somewhat troubled country; in spite of Gordon Brown’s initiative to encourage overseas students from this country and the offer of a place on a genuine course at a UK government funded college. This person appealed locally but was firmly rejected again.
Eventually we took the case to an AIT tribunal in UK: The immigration judge was very scathing about the disgraceful behaviour of the UK visa & immigration service and their foreign contractors.
Although the judge ruled that the student visa should be issued, the local UK officials and their foreign contractors have still failed to issue it.
The contractors have taken and kept this person’s passport for several months and apparently sent it to a third (unfriendly) country for “processing.”
The UK officials and their contractors seem to be ignoring the UK immigration judge’s clear ruling and seem to be finding every excuse to obstruct & delay issuing this visa – possibly so that this person misses the start of their course.
The UK officials and their contractors have repeatedly “lost” paperwork, they have repeatedly told the applicant to make the long dangerous journey to the UK High Commission – only to tell him that something vital is still missing or has not been returned from the third country.
Now, they have “lost” the applicant’s passport.
At the very least, this seems like maladministration by the UK officials and their foreign contractors. It’s possibly something even worse.
Surely these UK officials and their foreign contractors are bound by UK law?
If so, they would seem to be “in contempt of court.”
Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the letter you’ve received, UK government officials are “infallible” and a law unto themselves.
Unfortunately, the UK government treats all applicants as “criminals” and fails to correct the very serious faults in its own organisation.
This is how our UK government treats people who are natural “friends” and “supporters” of the UK.
No wonder the UK now has so many enemies; no wonder the UK government now has to spend so much of our money on “security”; no wonder all this money brings so little benefit.