NØ2ID has just released the following press release:

Schoolchildren to be targeted for ID interrogation

In a document leaked to the Sunday Times, the Home Office Identity and Passports Service (IPS) states that from March 26th next year children as young as 16 will be made to attend an intrusive “interview” at one of 69 interrogation centres across the UK, involving a round trip of up to 80 miles at their own cost. The request for proposals from advertising agencies suggests that one in four new applicants will fail to get their passport in time to travel.

The interviews with officials, which are expected to last around 20 minutes, are intended to probe the personal background of each applicant “to ensure that the identity actually belongs to the individual making the application”. An official file will be collated on each person from various sources, and they will then face cross examination by officials to check out their story against it.

Phil Booth, NO2ID’s National Coordinator said:

“If you’re planning on having a gap year, be prepared to answer a few questions.

“The Government is setting itself up to tell everyone who they are. And they are starting with impressionable teenagers. Submit to a grilling, and match what we think we know about you, or you won’t be able to travel, is what ‘Authentication by Interview’ really means. This is just a glimpse of the “papers, please” ID regime that is to come.

“Desperate to avoid another humiliating meltdown of the passport service, and wary of tipping its hand on ID cards, the Government now intends to burn taxpayers’ money in the millions propagandising your children to believe the state is the final arbiter of their identity.”