Recently the UK Government has announced that identity cards for immigrants and British citizens will be scrapped within 100 days. The National Identity Register which holds biographic and biometric fingerprint data of card holders will be destroyed. The new Government is giving this a great deal of priority; this was the first piece of legislation introduced by the Coalition Government.
UK Home Secretary Theresa May had the following to say:
‘This bill is a first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people and hand power back to them.
‘With swift Parliamentary approval, we aim to consign identity cards and the intrusive ID card scheme to history within 100 days.’
The Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (photo) said:
‘The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card scheme represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years.
‘By taking swift action to scrap it, we are making it clear that this government won’t sacrifice people’s liberty for the sake of Ministers’ pet projects.
‘Cancelling the scheme and abolishing the National Identity Register is a major step in dismantling the surveillance state – but ID cards are just the tip of the iceberg. Today marks the start of a series of radical reforms to restore hard-won British freedoms.’
It is expected that the Bill set set out in the Queen’s Speech on 25 May will be enacted in August 2010. The bill will invalidate identity cards; It will no longer be possible to use these as travel documents in Europe. The UK Government says that this will save the taxpayer £86m over the next four years. Immigrants and British citizens will no longer have to pay for the cards and according to the Government will save £800 million in card fee costs over the next ten years. The Identity Commissioner role will end. The public panels to scrutinise the identity cards scheme, have been disbanded.
UK Immigration Bogus Job Offer Warning
The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has recently made an announcement about bogus job offers to overseas nationals looking for work in the UK. UK immigration warns that sometimes names of real UKBA officials are used in the job offers.
Rob Yeldham, director of communications at UKBA made the following announcement:
‘My name has been used in several apparent attempts to scam foreign professionals looking for work in the UK. We have referred cases to our security unit, but at this stage it is unclear what the nature of the scam is, or where in the world it is based. The best advice is to be careful of any unsolicited offers.’
The workpermit.com name has also been misused at times. workpermit.com is one of the most popular immigration related websites in the World and one of the oldest established immigration consultancies in the World. Sometimes unscrupulous consultants deliberately design their website to look like the workpermit.com site and also try and sell work related services using the workpermit.com name. workpermit.com is a private consultancy firm providing independent immigration advice.
We would advise you to take the following precautions:
UKBA deals with immigration control. It is not their job to find work for migrants.
UKBA email addresses will normally have “gov” at the end of the email address.
It is normally difficult to obtain a work visa for entry to a particular Country. Before paying any money to an individual or entity for work related services ask for full details of the type of visa that you will come under.
Most legitimate organisations have their own domain name. For example they would not use a gmail or yahoo email address. Normally, workpermit.com emails will end with “workpermit.com”.
workpermit.com is a private consultancy firm and does not itself issue work permits or other visas.
Try and avoid transferring money using Western Union or a similar service. It is difficult to know for sure exactly who will be receiving the money.
If in any doubt contact workpermit.com for advice.
If everyone takes reasonable precautions it should be possible to beat the fraudsters.
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