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Lana
Head Banana


Registered: 10/27/99
Posts: 3,109
Loc: www.MycoSupply.com
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British Visa Applicants Face High-Tech Tests
#1854175 - 08/27/03 08:07 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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And people thought the USA was rough
I don't want to get into a political debate here but one of the main reasons the the UK and US teamed up with "the war on Iraq" is becasue the UK is known for having excellent survillance and secuirty operations. Big Brother is all over! This article shows just that....
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=st..._immigration_dc
British Visa Applicants Face High-Tech Tests
By Gideon Long
LONDON (Reuters) - People applying for British visas will increasingly have to provide fingerprints, facial scans or state-of-the-art iris scans to prove they are not trying to get into the country illegally, the government said on Wednesday.
It also said similar biometric technology would be used in British passports from 2005 to cut down on forgery.
Speaking a day before the keenly watched publication of asylum figures for the first half of this year, Home Secretary David Blunkett said biometrics could help clamp down on bogus claims for asylum.
"Preventing people from traveling to the UK illegally in the first place has been a key part of the strategy to reduce the number of unfounded asylum applications," he said.
"Biometrics can play a big part in tackling illegal immigration and abuse of our asylum system and by embracing it we can reduce further the pull factor to the UK."
Asylum has become an explosive issue in Britain.
The government says it is addressing the fears of Britons who say their country is being "swamped" by asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. However, immigration support groups say the government is pandering to ungrounded fears fueled by the populist media.
The Institute of Public Policy Research, which describes itself as a progressive thinktank, says more than half of all people seeking asylum in Britain come from countries plagued by conflict and human rights abuse.
Nearly three quarters of the world's refugees are in the developing world, not in developed countries like Britain, it says.
The government has set itself an ambitious target of halving the number of asylum claims within the space of a year. It has until October to meet that pledge.
"The figures we are publishing tomorrow will put us firmly on track to meet the target..." Blunkett said in a statement.
The U.K. government is operating a pilot scheme in Sri Lanka which requires anyone applying for a British visa to provide biometric proof of who they are, and it plans to extend the scheme to other countries soon.
The government already uses biometrics to monitor asylum applicants in Britain. All asylum seekers are fingerprinted and their records checked against British and EU databases.
Some 150,000 asylum seekers have been issued with high-tech identity cards to enable their progress through the asylum system to be tracked.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 3 months, 8 days
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Re: British Visa Applicants Face High-Tech Tests [Re: Lana]
#1854544 - 08/27/03 11:18 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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> applying for British visas will increasingly have to provide fingerprints, facial scans or state-of-the-art iris scans to prove they are not trying to get into the country illegally
Ah yes... all the people that are trying to sneak in illegally will surely stand in line waiting to get fingerprinted, scanned, anal probed, tagged, and whatever else is needed. They wont simply try to sneak in unnoticed.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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daussaulit
Forgetful

Registered: 08/06/02
Posts: 2,894
Loc: Earth
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Re: British Visa Applicants Face High-Tech Tests [Re: Lana]
#1854942 - 08/27/03 01:06 PM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Lana said: And people thought the USA was rough
Well the INS got shut down and nothing else has been put in place. At least the british are doing something.
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Jackal
Well Versed In Etiquette


Registered: 10/16/02
Posts: 4,576
Last seen: 9 months, 22 days
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Re: British Visa Applicants Face High-Tech Tests [Re: Lana]
#1870513 - 09/01/03 04:39 AM (20 years, 8 months ago) |
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Illegal immigration is a big problem at the moment in the UK; ever since the tunnel opened.
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