There are some immigration lines installed with iris scan equipment at Heathrow Terminal 3 arrivals. However, every time I've been through there recently it hasn't been in use. It's not clear whether it ever has been in use. I asked one of the immigration officials and received a shrug of the kind that normally only the French know how to do.
I pondered that one. It may be that there's an audit trail. As soon as Companies House receives the completed 288 form, the directors' personal details appear against the company. That's easily traceable complete with home address, the lot. One can also cross reference backwards to identify if there is more than one directorship.
I suppose that they could check to see if there's disqualifications etc, but it seems a bit unlikely that the Passport Office would do checks to see whether the director is knowingly trading while insolvent. That would be hard to detect from the annual submitted accounts for a small firm anyway.
Amusingly, I applied for a Costco card. Not that I use them at all frequently, but occasionally they do have good prices on branded goods such as bottled water that make it worth a visit. Their acceptance criteria are bizarre.
Option 1 is to be a business. They want to see a bank statement, utility bill and have the VAT number. That's what I did.
Option 2 is like the passport thing. Except that they add civil servants, firemen, policemen, ambulance drivers and a few others. There seems to be no logic in the criteria.
I know, personally, of at least one case of this.
I neither use Costco nor have any associating with the company; however your list of appointments seem to consist of public employees. Perhaps such employees are more easily traced/checked than private-sector company employees? Civil Servants (above a certain grade) are listed in the 'Civil Service Handbook (title?)' purchasable annually from HMSO. {It included mail and telephone addresses for seemingly everybody from Permanent Secretaries - to office dog-bodies. {You may reverse that listing if you wish].
It doesn't seem to be that sophisticated. It's more like an airlock with transparent walls and doors. There seemed to be no places to put your head or anything like that. However, the exit from it did not go to a jobsworth desk. It's entirely possible that this is like Orac in Blake's 7 - i.e. a perspex box with a few flashing lights that does bugger all..
It seems implausible that this could process the arrivals from VS602 from Johannesburg any time soon.
And me, it also means that you get a "trade" rather than "personal" card and thus can shop in the mornings. Some goods are also only available to "trade" customers only, more than 32 tablets (2 packs) of Paracetamol is the obvious one.
ISTR they are looking for "professionals" ie those with a good steady monthly income rather than the hoi poloi workers. Makro has similar requirements but their clientel are very much from the "council estate" rather than Costco's "leafy suburb". Oddly Makro's prices are not much better than yer average Tesco, Costco are nearly always cheaper by a quid or two. About the only thing that Makro has going for it is the broader range of products, some that Costco don't do.
That's one group. But it also includes people such as Chartered Engineers, for example. Again, I guess they are traceable. I seem to qualify about three different ways!
Guy King typed
I think they now require the photo to be taken no more than a month before the date of your passport application.
There was a datestamp on my last photo booth mugshot strip.
we did our little boys one using a home camera but then trimmed the photo and took it to Jessops, 49p for 8 passport size photos with borders. Took it to post office check and send counter who said they couldn't process application as it had been started online and so wasn't hand written..(hmmmm..). Also advised that picture was likely too dark. New passport in hand 10 days later.
There wasn't one on the photo I printed out at home :-) !
David
Airline pilots (don't know about other employees) are another 'permitted' category.
David
One of my colleaguesbrought in his daughter's passport photo to be signed. checking the instructions on the form in detail there was no mention of who was allowed to sign, so I did. Previously my wife has had to sign - as a teacher she was "professional" but as an engineer I wasn't. Maybe things are relaxing ... hth Neil
That is part of the problem - lots of others fell for that suggestion as well.
Its only as they start rolling out these things on wider scales do they realise that iris scans tend to be insufficently distinct on some races and ethnic groups (that by supprising coincidence are also very poorly represented in the engineering communities), and getting decent finger print scans also requires that you are not a manual worker who regularly wears theirs away handling bricks and the like[1]. As for getting a iris scan from an infant (look ahead, don't move your head, keep very still and don't blink), its working out trickier than expected!
[1] I noted after laying four pallets of block paving recently that I also had no fingerprints for a week or so!
IIRC Engineer is now explicitly listed amoung the "professions" allowed...
(I always state my occupation on the forms as "Company Director / Engineer" - never seems to cause problems)
Got any more detail to share?
The message from John Rumm contains these words:
I've had that - though you'll find that actually you'll still leave a readable trace behind. The sweat glands follow the whorls of your fingerprint and are deep enough not to get abraded unless your fingers are bleeding. Next time it happens press a bald finger onto a clean glass and you'll see the print is still there.
You probably already know this if I have understood the quantity of flying you do correctly, but there is a working iris recognition system at Schipol (that's Amsterdam for the non-flyers). You have to specially sign up to it but once you are a member you can walk up to it, stick a card in a slot, look in the little scanner hole and the door swings aside and you're through. A rejection herds you through to a passport desk much like a livestock fence. I think I've seen about 3 people use it in total out of 6 or 7 trips.
However, the technology might not be detecting sweat marks, but recording visually. I don't know.
Christian.
I did my own. ISTR that the requirements were clearly spelled out in the blurb that came with the application form, and that Photoshop was easily able to handle the cropping and resizing requirements. A whiteboard made an excellent background. People have commented on how unusual it is that my passport photo looks like me.
Technically, I can't see anything wrong with it, provided you have known the block down the road for the required period.
In the past, I've just got anyone at work with a Ph.D to do it (there's quite a few), although the last time, I used our midwife (for the new baby's passport). The same midwife had delivered his older sister, so had known us for the required period.
Christian.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.