The Government announced this week that Sheffield will be home to a new UKBA Service mobile interrogation squad. Based at Vulcan House, Millsands, the team will target those required to have an Identity Card but who cannot attend an interrogation centre in person.
The inquisitorial team will visit people’s homes to perform an “intrusive interview”, which will include taking 3D photographs and finger scans. The taking of retina scans and DNA samples is also allowed for in legislation.
No2ID Sheffield is concerned about the Government’s campaign to coerce vulnerable people onto the National Identity Register. How will the public be able to tell genuine interrogators from fraudsters trying to gain access to their homes and identities? There is also a risk that remote terminals will make it easier for corrupt employees to register fake IDs.
Sheffield No2ID co-ordinator Richard Belbin said, “Those deliberately targeted by this team will have their identities appropriated free of charge, but the Government also plans to sell to the rest of us the ‘privilege’ of being interrogated in our own homes, or places of work. Perhaps they hope such ‘premium services’ will help to meet the estimated £4.5 Bn cost of the scheme. However, in the depths of the worst recession since records began, ID cards stand out as a gratuitous waste of money and liberty. The scheme should be scrapped immediately.”
Tags: asylum, immigration, mobile, Security, sheffield, ukba
