Passport Application letter !!!

[Blister]

Don't you wish that you had written this?


Subject: Passport Application


Dear Minister,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30-odd years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's licence, on the last four passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother's name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I'm obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address.. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to activate the Fifth Reich for God's sake! I just want to go and park my weary ass on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week's well-earned rest away from all this rubbish.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some twit to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture - you know... the one where we're not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can't smile? 'Cause we're totally pineappled off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone "important" to verify who I am -- you know, someone like my doctor...
who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN....

Yours sincerely,
An Irate Citizen. :lol: :lol:

 

[Rich]

Blister, I cannot believe you have had no replies to this post, it just shows how a nannying state that interferes so much with peoples lives does'nt know their axxe from their elbow, how on earth can they control immigration if they don't even recognise home grown servicemen, it's shameful to say the least.

Regards,
Rich.

 

[Smudger]

It's a joke...

 

[Rich]

Well if that is the case, my apologies, but I could believe it happening.

Rich. :?

 

[Slim]

Rich, you've got to chill out. Have a laugh.

 

[Rich]

ok, \/ :lol: :lol: :lol:

Rich.

 

[misterfish]

It's a joke...

But remember 'Many a true word spoke in jest'.

Misterfish

 

[Smudger]

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

In order to confirm that you are who you say you are. At my local hospital yesterday I was asked for this three times. Good. No-one amputated the wrong leg.

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

Because that would involve the connection of different databases into one super-system. This has been rejected by the public, by civil liberties organisations, the Conservative party, and of course the Liberals. It is also very difficult to do. Billions have been spent trying to develop systems which just keep everyone's medical records in the same database and it is very hard to do.

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

Yes. Your lottery ticket is not part of a government database. In fact it isn't anything to do with the government at all, unless you want Camelot to have access to your tax records. And of course all data is ultimately entered by hand. Do you want to pay the 'bureaucrats and desk jockeys - I think the term paperwork baron has been used on this forum - to do that? Or leave it to the individual to claim?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30-odd years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's licence, on the last four passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years

Eh? Never had to do that,

, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

See above, it's about identification. And the census isn't a waste of time - how do you imagine government gets the information that allows it to plan for new schools, hospitals etc? Or to understand population trends of any kind? Ouija boards?

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother's name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

See above about checking. This wouldn't be necessary if you were prepared to accept identity cards...

I apologise Minister. I'm obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address.. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to activate the Fifth Reich for God's sake! I just want to go and park my weary ass on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week's well-earned rest away from all this rubbish.

Well, of course, it's easy to spot terrorists by looking at them, isn't it? Unless we are going to say that anyone with a 'foreign' appearance is a suspect. Hmm. That takes us to some very unpleasant places, doesn't it? Perhaps we would be 'activating the Fifth Reich'. Actually, it was the 3rd Reich, but hey.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid!

£18.95

What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day?


Well yes - but only for people in that area. What would everybody else do? Unless you had passport issuing offices in every town - but then you would have government waste, more civil servants (paperwork barons) and vastly increased expense. And worse security. And who does this on foot anyway?

But nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some twit to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture - you know... the one where we're not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can't smile? 'Cause we're totally ****** off!

Standard instruction, always has been. That way when the immigration officer looks at the person he can tell what they look like. And I'm one of those twits - done dozens - takes about 1 minute.

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone "important" to verify who I am -- you know, someone like my doctor...
who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN....

Rather a racist comment - are all Pakistanis dishonest? In fact, of course, the requirement for a doctor or other professional person (not 'important person) is because of that person's assumed integrity, not nationality or length of tenure.

And if the government did actually hold all of that information on any individual there would be millions up in arms because of big-brother intrusion.

'Many a true word' is a completely fallacious statement, as false as 'no smoke without fire'. It removes the need for proof (in fact the need for thought) in order to condemn.

It's a joke, not a political manifesto.

 

[kityuser]

oh dear I can smell a locked thread coming on........

 

[Jake]

Nicely demolished, Smudger.

 

[lurker]

OK Smudge demolish this:

2 weeks ago I had a form posted to my home adddress from tax office containing a return envelope

Front page had printed on it:
My name & address
NI number
DoB
A tax office code number that is evidently their number of my employer.

The back of the form asked me to declare my:

Address
NI number
DoB
Employer

Nothing else!

I wrote "see your own date overleaf" & signed.

Why are "they" wasting time on little me?
Why don't they sort out the tax dodgers fiddling millions

 

[Smudger]

See my reply above.

They are making you make a declaration, or
They are checking the information is correct, or
They are using a computer to input the data, or
They are using a human to input the data.

Everyone has to obey the law, there is no defence of 'just breaking it a little bit' so they check up on everybody.

How do you think they find the big criminals?

But here the clue is in the word 'declare'.

 

[frugal]

OK Smudge demolish this:

2 weeks ago I had a form posted to my home adddress from tax office containing a return envelope

Front page had printed on it:
My name & address
NI number
DoB
A tax office code number that is evidently their number of my employer.

The back of the form asked me to declare my:

Address
NI number
DoB
Employer

Nothing else!

I wrote "see your own date overleaf" & signed.

Why are "they" wasting time on little me?
Why don't they sort out the tax dodgers fiddling millions

I had something similar, but as I had recently moved and as my companies HR department had 'lost' the three forms I had filled in with my change of address the form got redirected in the post and ended up at the new house, so I was able to notify them of my change of address.

The other questions will be there to make sure that they have got the correct data about you. My dad had three NI numbers, where employers had typed the wrong things on the forms they had sent off to the Tax man. (do not get me started on the fact that there was no checking on the fact that there were three people with the same name and same DoB at the same address all with NI numbers one digit different...)

I work with large volumes of customer data, our biggest problem is bad data being entered by the people at the front end on minimum wage with data entry targets and systems that do not quite cater for the values they are trying to put in (i.e. our system assumes UK residence, so when a foreign national registers there is no where to put Country, so they put it in Post Code which plays havoc with down stream systems).

We are always having to ask customers if they still live where we think they live, or if they are also this person over here in a different record with identical details.

 

[Smudger]

That's a good point. When I was doing some work around the National Pupil Database there were many thousands of apparently duplicated entries, because School B was never told that the kid had already been to School A, and so entered them in the system. Not to mention plain old errors, identical entries that were genuine, missing kids (lots) and just plain garbage (data inputters can do some very strange things) and spelling mistakes. Hence the need for checking at all stages.

 

[davegw]

Ok, I have something to declare....I work in IT. Worse still I manage a department that looks after a database where 60 million records would be fraction of the total...

and Data goes missing all of the time! Things get entered incorrectly because humans aren't infallable. Things get corrupted because technology isn't infallable.

We have a 99.5% QA Threshold - that is as long as the data that leaves us is 99.5 correct we are happy - which sound fine until you remember that the 0.5% incorrect could well add up to 3,000,000 records!

So there will always be checks in any database - and you will always be asked "stupid" questions just so you can confirm that (as the person who really knows) that you are who you say you are.