Home Office advertises incompetence to sell ID cards
Posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 by Home Office WatchCategory: ID Cards, Passports
Joan Ryan today announced that 10,000 fraudulent passport applicants were granted passports in the last year. Dhiren Barot, serving 40 years in prison, apparently had 7 fraudulent passports.
Of course, they’re telling us this to convince the British public that ID cards are necessary. Is this the first time the government has boasted about its own failures just to sell another policy?
The thing that really troubles me, however, is that Joan Ryan’s ministerial statement says:
0.25% of applications (equivalent to 16,500 fraudulent passport applications a year) were believed to be from people attempting to obtain a passport fraudulently. Almost half of these applications were stopped.
But the press release says:
IPS detected some 6,500 attempted frauds last year.
In what world is 6,500 half of 16,500?
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March 21st, 2007 at 12:00 pm
What a bunch of incompetent fools. bring the passport office back south where it can be monitored competently. seems that all they are capable of is, Buggering about boni-fide applications.
March 24th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Joan Ryan’s statement seems to mean that over half of the applications believed to be fraudlent were not stopped. Or to put the same point another way, about 8,500 applications believed to be fraudulent were then approved and passports issued. Or is the statement simply badly drafted?
Heaven knows what the real figures are.
About twelve years ago, I happened to learn that genuine Home Office issued false passports could be ordered, retail, for about 40 pounds more than the Home Office charged. (The Home Office were aware of the racket, and how it was worked. They were “taking measures” to deal with it.) Has anyone news of current prices for such passports? If the price has gone up substantially, this fraud may be decreasing.