Media reports on Interrogation Centres


In today’s Telegraph, under the headline ‘ Parliament must control this passport to snoop’, they report:

Holders of a British passport, even the EU-friendly claret-coloured ones introduced in 1995, still bask in the comforting knowledge that Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State “requests and requires” all those whom it may concern to “allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance” as well as affording “such assistance and protection as may be necessary”.

But for a new generation of passport holders, such a stirring validation of the right to travel is about to be transformed into something very different. For new passports – issued no longer by the Passport Office, but by the Orwellian-sounding Identity and Passport Service (IPS) – will be little more than a template for the new national ID card.

The article goes on to point out the hoops through which new passport applicant will have to jump:

The “interrogation” (their word) will take between 10 and 20 minutes, though it will be conducted in a “non-threatening manner”; how very comforting. A list of up to 200 personal questions will be drawn on to authenticate people’s identities.

Meanwhile Alan Travis in the Guardian writes:

At the interviews the new passport applicants’ identities will be confirmed by answering questions about themselves. Mr Hall [chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service UKIPS] said that the questions would be drawn from a stock of 200 based on the “social footprint” of each applicant, including their family history, current household, including all occupants, past addresses, financial background, including mortgage data and credit references, and even the background of the person countersigning the form.

The Express is not convinced by government spin (see yesterday’s blog entry):

To combat growing fraud, officials announced a new interview system for first-time applicants designed to crack down on the number of phoney documents.

But last night, Opposition MPs dismissed the new measures as time consuming, and said they would have little effect in the war on terror.

Whilst the Daily Mail focuses on the length of the interrogation and the inconvenience to the traveller:

British citizens will be quizzed on up to 200 different pieces of personal information in a 30-minute grilling if they want a passport, it has been revealed.

From May, thousands of applicants will be forced to travel 20 miles or more – at their own expense – to attend one of the interviews

NO2ID’s message is clearly getting through to the media in the run up to ID Day.