NO2ID

Just applied for a passport and had to attend the interview.

Was concerned about going but i must admit that there wasn't too much too it and i dont feel they gathered any information from me that the state did not already hold.

i feel the main reason for the interview is to verify that look the same as the passport photo sent in

Hi, and thanks for the info. Can you remember some (or all) of the questions you were actually asked? It would be really helpful to have some more detail.

lot of questions related to the application form - name previous addresses, phone number - counter signatory and parents details.

A few questions about credit - but they didn't want any account numbers or anything - i asked them where they got that info from and they said Equifax.

got my passport this morning

Thanks... what did they ask about your parents and the countersignatory that wasn't on the form?

And did they ask the one about the tortoise?

or was a turtle ? Great movie

That in essence seems to be the problem: the "state" may well have all the information, but in disparate databases which are supposed to be subject to the "no crossover" rules in DPA. The fact that people equate "the state" with a single entity with carte blanche access to everything is one of the more useful (from the state's point of view) misconceptions that invoke a sense of "trust" in the citizen. Resupplying / confirming the information gathered from disparate sources enables a single source to contain everything.

Well, there's no point in asking questions they don't already know the answer to!

It's a shame that our Guest, having volunteered information about the interview, is being so vague about what the actual questions were!

Am I right in saying that, after a quarter of a million interviews, we still don't know what questions are actually asked? You'd almost think they were making interviewees sign the Official Secrets Act.

beieve it or not remembering what they ask is quite difficult but some of them

Who countersigned your passport
How long have you known them
Whats their occupation
parents date of birth and place of birth
Asked if i was on electoral roll

hope that helps

It does - thanks!

Even if it sounds like they didn't ask anything 'interesting', as it were.

Doesn't sound like they ask anything that would deter a fraudster!

Thanks, guest, that is useful. These details are really helpful in trying to work out whether the interviews are too nosey, and too easy for impersonators. If anybody else has been for interview, and can remember any of the questions they were asked, then do share please!

I had an interview yesterday.
They asked me,
To spell my whole name.
What was the DOB of myself, wife, oldest son, mother and father? They also asked me when my mother and father got married. And where were they born as well as myself?
What telephone numbers and email addy did I put on my form?
How long had I known the counter signatory and how old was he.
Where did he work and what was his title?
How long had I been living in my present address and also how long had I lived in my previous address.
Was I on the electoral register?
What documents did I post along with my application. (Remember to mention the photo's if you get this question.)
That's all I can remember. Sometimes I felt like I was being interrogated, with some of the questions. My wife had her interrogation a month ago and she felt awful. She and I both felt we were like criminals being interviewed for a crime.
I too came out the interview feeling bad. Concerned if I'd fluffed some of the questions. Especially when she didn't look convinced with my answers.
I was tired and stressed and sometimes couldn't think straight.
So there you have it. Hope this helps.

It is a ritual of power and subjection. Of course it doesn't deter fraudsters, but that's scarcely the point.

It is to impress upon the naive public (and probably convinces the actors too) that those in authority are frighteningly powerful and very knowledgeable (about what you've told them), and therefore are good protectors.

Thanks Guest, for having such an excellent recall!

What amazes me is that nearly all the questions are a variant of "please tell me what you (and your countersignatory) wrote on the form". Surely there is no point whatsoever in this, as anybody capable of putting the information on the form is equally capable of remembering it?

Which raises the fun possibility of someone filling in the form on your behalf (for whatever reason, like blindness, dyslexia, etc.) and they transcribe incorrectly. This happens in the Civil Service all the time, viz. me having three dates of birth transcribed from the same document, so it is quite likely to occur elsewhere.

As the form is taken to be the arbiter of truth, anything that deviates, such as a correct answer when the form has an incorrect one, means you don't get a passport. Try telling them they have incorrect information if you want to waste some time. They just can't accept that possibility.

I forgot to mention they asked about any loans or mortgages I had too.
Both my wife and I noticed, their demeanour and manner may be a friendly one. But it's very obvious they have been trained to watch your body langauge and facial expressions.
First thing I noticed at the reception, the women looked me straight in the eye's when asking for my details. I know this is normal but this was something different.
In the interview the woman also looked me straight in the eye's at all times. And when I was answering her questions I could see she was looking at my facial expressions watching for any signals I may not be telling the truth. She never once took her eye's off my face, when asking the questions and whilst I was answering them. The only times she took her eye's off my face was when she glanced at her computer or was scribbling something down on a peice of paper. This I found to be VERY intimidating.
I was tired because I work late hours, and was stressed becuse on some of the questions she pressed for more information even though I couldn't remember if there WAS information she knew about which I couldn't remember.
Before going for this interrogation I thought the interviews were a good idea. Now I am unconvinced. That this is the way to go for every British citizen. Especially when most of the questions were about what I had already put on the form.
People are still going to get fake passports regardless of the interviews or not.
I hope this information I've put here will give others an idea of what to expect then they have to go for their interviews.

Thanks again Guest, that information is very useful.

With regard to some of this info, the questions being asked, I don't really feel are relevant to what is necessary for a passport, can you at any point decline to answer specific questions?

What concerns me the most is being asked information about your family, I apprciate that "maybe" it could be viewed as establishing you reside and have contacts within a community, but surely that's what the counter signatory is for?

Alot of the questions being noted above really do just seem completely over-arching and un-necessary.

The irony of the whole thing is that if they were asked, 'Do you know if I'm telling the truth?' they would have to say, 'No', because in the end they simply have to trust the information they have before them is true, UNLESS they have genuine reasons to believe otherwise.

A person is taken to be innocent (this includes 'telling the truth'), until the contrary can be adequately demonstrated, otherwise the whole population must be presumed to be lying/guilty of some wrong---but how can we prove we are not? Usually proving a negative is regarded as being an illogical, even impossible, way of proceeding.

In the end this whole pitiful process is really about intimidating everybody. Of course the type of people who really need to be stopped from subverting the immigration/legal system are not likely to be prevented by this, but fundamental relationships between people and state are undermined.

The problem remains: how do they know we are telling the truth? Our whole society depends on a fundamental willingness to trust each other, and a general expectation that that trust will be fulfilled. Our government, in its unthinking way, seems quite happy to work at undermining that trust.

I wasn't told at the beginning I could decline to answer the questions. Until she told me she was going to ask me a few about my parents. She blabbed on about knowing how some people will feel concerning their parents and how personal they may feel being asked about them. If I felt uncomfortable with anything she asked me, I was allowed to tell her I didn't want to answer them. What the consequences of this are, I wasn't told. At no point did she tell me I didn't have to answer the other questions though.
When going home on the bus, I realised I could have been anyone. I'm no expert, but surely how can what she asked me prove I am the genuine person? It couldn't.
It's a bad idea and as I think I have already stated, it needs to be sorted out. So people don't feel like they're criminals. I did feel, I was looked upon as guilty till proven innocent. Again my wife also felt this way.

I suspect I can answer this staring at you incident.

It's called neuro linguistic programming.

She was calibrating to your involuntary eye movements. It acts as a simple LIE DETECTOR TEST.

Left handed and right handed people can sometimes be wired differently inside the brain, so she calibrates to when you're telling the truth, by the direction in which your eyes move. You can't control these involuntary eye movements.

Two questions for you. Monitor which way your eye's move to calibre.

Q1. What colour is the front door in your current home?
Q2. Dress Minnie Mouse in white, with pink spots.

A "right hander" will look to the left to RECALL.
IE TRUTH. You're rummaging around in your brain circuits to locate the answer, so you're RECALLING the truth. This is good for them.
So when they ask how old your neighbour is, your eyes should flicker
LEFT, as you're trying to remember, so this indicates, the truth is probably being told.

However, if your eyes, went to the RIGHT, then you're a LIAR, as eyes darting right, says you're "creating" the truth, not remembering it, ie you're LYING!!

This can be reversed for left handed people, so she'd need to ask you dumb questions to be certain, ie your date of birth. Your eyes are easy to spot.

Although what you say is true (and quite widely known about), I refuse to believe that they are actually trained in anything other than to appear intimidating.

The government has low quality standards, and does things on the cheap while appearing, if questioned by an outside observer, to be spending money on security; and this is evident if you work with any of their suppliers. It's along the lines of telling someone you went to the circus - when you meant you went to where the circus was but didn't spend the money to get in.

I cannot believe that they actually spend money on training their interview staff, especially when all the questions were initially taken from the form.

This is the first time I have heard of questions not being about items on the form. The scoop was that they were linking up with experian to ask questions; while it was laughably incompetent it was bearable; it's quite sinister if they have now got round to poking around in people's credit records.

Except that it is entirely without evidential foundation.

I was about to say, the "access cue" thing which is what the poster was referring to has been discredited.