Reports first surfaced in 2005 that the UK's passport office was working with Abbey and HSBC to set up a service that willl enable banks to cross-reference passport details with information held in the passport database. Although the Data Protection Act prevents the passport service handing out data, banks are now able to use a call centre to check passport details provided by customers.
James Hall, the chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, told the FT that the service has now been running for one year and has been a success. Firms regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) are able check and validate passports provided by customers by calling a special hotline.
In one case, a check on a customer applying for a business loan from a bank showed the passport had been forged, even though the customer had passed other checks, says Hall.
Several arrests have been made and 211 forged or stolen passports have been seized, he adds.
The service is a precursor to the sort of customer checks that the national ID cards will be eventually be used for, says the FT.
(source)
Now link that to this story, where recruiter phishing is becoming big business in obtaining passport copies, and even in the UK because of the enforcement of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 (No.3319), especially section 19, and Schedule 4, section 11, recruiters are now obliged to take photocopies of the passport of everyone who applies for work.
Because they are photocopies, they are not covered by the DPA, and with no regulation or protocol as to the storage of these passport copies within each recruitment firm, there are now millions of copies of passports floating around in an unregulated market.
Any betting on how many have now found their way to third world countries to be used for replacement applications at British Embassies or using the discredited outsourced system.
A case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?, or is it just deliberate (if you can make something virtually worthless, then it needs to be replaced by a system of governments choice).
As the Banks say above: The service is a precursor to the sort of customer checks that the national ID cards will be eventually be used for.
NuLab - Destroying Britain from the inside out.
