UKH

We had T's passport photos rejected as apparently there was red eye (not that we could see it...).  I've now had them re-taken professionally, so they should be fine, but does anyone know if I have to have one countersigned again?  My friend who is an Accountant & signed the first set is away till next month & I need to get the photos re-submitted before the 30th Jan, or they keep our fee & I'll have to pay again.

Can anyone advise?

In reply to Emiliedaniel:

You'll definitely need one countersigned.

In reply to Emiliedaniel:

All sorts of people can sign a photo. I got the man who runs our local post office to sign it.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:

I got our vet to sign mine

In reply to Emiliedaniel:

It is quite easy to copy signatures. I'm not suggesting in any way that you do that by the way. It just seems odd that as part of an identification system which involves bio-metrics etc., getting a passport requires someone to write something on the back of a picture. 

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

Doesn't even need to be copied - I've signed a few for people but never had anyone contact me to confirm its my signature! 

In reply to Ron Rees Davies:

But you will have had to give your passport number, so presumably your signature can be checked against that.

In reply to Mark Kemball:

Ah. Thats all changed since last time I did one! Makes more sense now!

In reply to Mark Kemball:

And he's got a passport because someone with a passport signed his photo, and that person had their passport because someone with a passport signed THEIR photo, etc. It is a bizarre notion of validation, just like the days before chip and PIN (let's leave contactless out of this for now) payments, when you would sign a piece of paper and a shop cashier would visually check it against a signature on your debit card. It sounds crazy now just reading what I've typed!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I agree with you that we have this strange validation system of having some fine upstanding member of the community (from some defined list) countersign a passport. Seems a bit outdated to me.

I do know people who have countersigned documents and have received a phone call checking they are how they say they are (both the counter signer and the applicant).

In reply to Emiliedaniel:

I've had passport photos declined (couldn't for the life of me see why, but had a sneaky suspicion it was to make more work for the passport office and keep their jobs going, or am i being too cynical).  These days the photo booths are geared up for passport photos (get your face in the little circle on the screen etc) so there's less chance of them being declined.

In reply to Emiliedaniel:

I've been quite impressed with the interworking between DVLA and the passport office.  I had to renew my driving licence recently (usual 10 year renewal) and becuase I had a recent photo on my passport application, I did the DVLA renewal all online and didn't have to send another photo and DVLA used the photo provided to the passport office.  Voila!  Sometimes things work.... (and save time for everyone).

In reply to yorkshire_lad2:

And they proved that they were who they said they were by....saying that they were who they said they were, right?

I once had to use a colleague's credit card to book a BA flight for myself online, all quite legitimate.

He received a phone call from BA asking him to verify that he was aware that his credit card was being used "in this manner". Reasonable security measure, right?

Except the phone call came through to the number that I, the potential thief, had entered into the online booking! So they could easily have been speaking to me and I could have said that I was him and that yes it was legitimate!

This was in 2001

I don't know if things have got that much smarter. Today I had to to book out a BT engineer to sort out my office broadband. The helpdesk operator said she needed to send a PIN by text to my mobile and I had to read it back to her, for security. I did query what this proves to either party, and she didn't know, at least she admitted she was going through a script step by step.

 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

it's seems usual that the bank calls, or more often sends a message to your mobile phone. you reply "yes" or "ok" and your rejected on-line payment for a foreign website then goes through straight away.

the phone no is the one the bank has on record, nowt to do with anything else.

banks seem altogether more on it than in the past for blocking payments, temp restrictions your card etc. for any "unusual" activity - probably because they were being hammered by CC fraud in the past, and it's pretty easy to call and confirm.

 

In reply to yorkshire_lad2:

I recently claimed a small tax refund from HMRC. To do that online I had to create something called a Government Gateway Account. And part of the verification process for doing that was supplying my passport number so that they could cross-check my details.

HMRC, Passport Office, DVLA, and the rest: its all effectively one big database. Technically impressive but it worries me.

In reply to daWalt:

 

my bank stopped me from buying a £7 cinema ticket online via my phone app one Saturday evening, telling me there is a problem and I need to contact them (in contactable hours i.e. not before Monday morning)

The problem that they had detected was that someone had managed to clone a lot of my laptop presumably via the Ticketmaster massive data leak earlier this year, and set up a secondary PayPal address within my PayPal, and make two purchases of £220 (a test) and £1600. 

These transactions were validated by my bank even though they had clearly seen it as potentially suspicious activity. 

I got all the money back fairly painlessly via PayPal, not via the bank. 

But it's odd that they blocked my £7 purchase from a device and location they should have recognised, and authorised a pair of major purchases from elsewhere!

I was impressed with PayPal's remedial action and unimpressed with my bank. 

The same bank twice blocked me from using ATMs in Peru despite my having informed them of travel plans beforehand. In both cases I needed to make long expensive phone calls to sort it. 

 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Kinda crazy, but the 'analogue age' had it's pluses sometimes. My Dad once lost his wallet and ID etc, and went into another branch of his bank and needed to get some money, and that branch rang up his 'home branch' and then described what he looked like to the staff there, who verified he was who he claimed to be. I can't really see that happening now. I guess somebody might think to do that, but it feels like there's 'less space to be human in' sometimes.

In reply to Timmd:

There's a bit of a 'tail wagging the dog' situation emerging in our digital world. Many situations in which we have to fit in with the software systems, not vice versa. Interesting piece on this in the Observer at the weekend - 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2018/nov/18/computers-...

In reply to Andy Johnson:

 

Yes, it worries me too.  But I suppose we should have known it would happen as soon as someone coined the phrase Big Brother.  What surprises me is how they've managed to co-ordinate databases.  knowing the propensity for "consultants", project and cost over-runs, integrating different databases, operating systems, manufacturers, suppliers, strategies etc etc, I'm quite surprised. I wonder what the cost was.  I take my hat off to them though to pulling it off.

I don't think we'll ever know....