NO2ID

Question: If we are required to record our fingerprints to acquire a new passport, what would happen if you removed your prints from your fingers before they were recorded? I understand that chemicals like cement will temporarily scrub your fingers clean.

I think they would find a way to require you to not obstruct their administrative efficiency, and a deliberate attempt to continue to do so would result in letters worded in the strongest possible terms!

More likely than not you will just be told to come back and try again - and a complete scrub is not a comfortable process...

It failing to provide information required is subject to penalty under the Act, once you are under compulsion. There might be various obstruction offences made out. But the key lever is simply refusal to supply you with the document or access you seek - treated as failure by you to apply properly, and therefore a non-event rather that offical refusal.

I've asked several people at various times what they plan to do for people who don't have registerable fingerprints and how they plan to make sure they are not "locked out" of social activities.

I don't think it's unreasonable that the government has a plan for those people who don't have perfect fingerprints. It's likely to be only a minority of the population, but even small sections of society can't be excluded from living their lives properly because the government can't think of a way round the problem.

However, on every occaision I get blanket "ID cards are good, mmm'kay" responses, none of which actually answer the question of how I'm supposed to prove who I am if I have an outbreak of eczema and my fingerprints don't match the ones I registered with.

Maybe someone here with better political connections can find someone in the government who's willing to answer the question with something other than bland political platitudes...

I'll bet that the real reason they haven't provided you with an answer is that there isn't an asnwer to give. In other words, they simply don't know. So enamoured of the technology are the powers that be that they simply haven't stopped to consider the problem of what to do when confronted with people who don't , for whatever reason(s), fall within the strictures of the system.

I myself have an artificial eye having never been born with a right eye at all due to the fact that it never formed properly during my mother's pregnancy with me. As a consequence, I do not have an iris pattern to provide for my right eye. This is a physical impossibility for me. If it should ever be the case that one is required to provide TWO iris scan biometrics (one for each eye) clearly I can't satisfy such a condition and I may well find myself being locked out of the system altogether as well as being ultimately denied ever having a passport or ID card (my license to exist). Like you, I have written to the IPS and my MP about this and have not yet had a defintive answer.

Personally I think NO2ID ought to be approaching some of the disability organisations about this issue as I feel sure that it's something they have yet to consider.

I work for a large parcel company and spend all day lifting cardboard boxes on and off vans. This has "scrubbed" my fingerprints so much that it is not possible to take prints (as established when my house got broken into and the scenes of crime officer tried to take my prints for elimination purposes).

I imagine this might be a problem for lots of airport cargo worker who, I believe, are first in line for ID cards after foreigners. Is this why the government is pressing for iris scans?

The trouble is .... No technoclogy is totally full-proof and yet a crucial element of this scheme relies on it being so.

It frightens me that these are supposedly intelligent, mature adults that dreamt up this scheme.

my fingers can't have prints taken as I have a rare connective tissue disorder

I suspect, from the standpoint of not wanting to be registered with this scheme, you may well be in an advantageous position.

Yes my condition has occasional advantages

There are many things that NO2ID ought to be doing but isn't, because of its extremely limited manpower.

For example in 2006, I made written approaches to all the established organisations working for the homeless. To be met with... silence. No response whatsoever. Not even a note saying, "we don't think this is a big deal".

Every group one approaches needs follow-up and tailored briefing material, if one is to get somewhere. That means the persistent application of someone's time skill and knowledge.

We have concentrated so far on educating the media, and on trying to get more NO2ID people active and talking to people outside. We do work with the slowly increasing number of other organisations that are beginning to see the problem, which is valuable but not high-profile.

If you have some time, could you approach disability organisations?

I have the time Guy, and would be willing to help, but I doubt I have the requisite level of expertise. As regards the entire ID cards/NIR issue, I consider myself to be nothing more than an interested lay person. If the aforesaid disability organisations were to ask for my professional opinion, I would not be in a position to give it. Any commentary made would, as I say, be made in my capacity as a lay person.

If however you think I would be of some help to the campaign, contact me offline.

If you're interested enough to read the legislation, the various Home Office publications and follow the news stories about the scheme posted here then you're already much, much better informed about the Scheme than anyone you'd speak to at any of the disability rights organisations. That's not a criticism of them - they already have their hands full, and don't have time to read around the subject the way you have.

Please have a go. You have nothing to lose, and may be able to greatly help the campaign.

There's a potential mixed message here that might need ironing out a bit.

On the one hand there are established national activities that NO2ID national office rightly wants to keep hold of: principally relations with the national media, national political parties, and other national groups with whom there is existing contact.

On the other hand there are constantly suggestions being made about new things that NO2ID could be doing, some of which involve national bodies, but which NO2ID national office doesn't have time to do itself. This is a source of occasional tetchiness, sometimes the suggestion is batted away, sometimes the person making the suggestion is invited to do it themselves (as in this case).

Perhaps this ad hoc approach is the right one, but perhaps there is also scope for clarifying things? This might simply involve writing down a few ground rules for people wanting to do something like this. For instance:



Any thoughts?

Fair point.

I happen to be a joint local group coordinator (for Cambridge). The rules I apply are:

1. If I'm talking to an organisation on "my patch", such as the press or local political parties, I say I'm representing "Cambridge NO2ID". I don't ask NO2ID HQ's permission, but if it's something out-of-the-ordinary and/or there's plenty of time, I may check in with them and ask advice.

2. If I'm talking to a national organisation and/or someone off my patch, I never represent myself as having anything to do with NO2ID (either the Cambridge branch or the national organisation), unless I've cleared it with NO2ID HQ (for national stuff) or the NO2ID local group in the area (for local activity in other areas).

3. When I write to national publications (national papers, Nature etc) about ID card issues, I always do so as a "private citizen", without reference to NO2ID, and without using my NO2ID email address.

Not sure if this helps, but it's a set of guidelines that works for me.

Speaking from the Disability point of view. I already ripped up the Blue Badge application form as I resented the intrusive questions and demands for a copy of my log book - irrelevant as the badge is issued to a person rather then a car. As for Iris scanning I have concerns about that. I have Ehlers - Danlos Syndrome and it affects my eyes. They are very sensitive to light and easily damaged. I would refuse on health grounds to participate. Unfortunately many Disability Groups are too in with the establishment to care about things such as ID cards.

Good one, Andrew. Yes, I do the same (I'm Shrewsbury local co-ordinator). Perhaps my list would go as a subset of your rule about national contact with national office consent, or for people who aren't local co-ordinators.