UK to replace physical biometric immigration cards with e-visas | Hacker News Reader

UK to replace physical biometric immigration cards with e-visas

bleepingcomputer.com

47 pointsedward54 comments

Unless we get these standardized I think this is a really had move. What at lot of politicians forget is that these cards have utility in countries other than their own. For instance these cards are commonly used all over Europe right now for foreigners to open bank accounts, benefit from visa simplification regimes etc.

Taking away that portability of a basic document is going to be to the disadvantage of many.

These cards are not a valid form of ID in the UK, you can’t open a bank account with a biometric permit. If you are a foreigner on a visa you have to use your passport to open a bank account, all the card does is prove that you have temporary or permanent leave to remain.

They currently have absolutely no use other than border control.

Source: I have one.

You need your passport if you've only got a vignette or in-passport visa sticker.

BRP is often accepted, in lieu of driving license for bank account opening. https://www.lloydsbank.com/legal/proof-of-identity.html

I wouldn't call it a "not valid form of ID," when you can use them to board domestic flights, prove your age at establishments, and practically use it as an ID where they'd otherwise accept a driving license for ID.

PS: I hold one too.

If you look at Lloyd’s under the actual documents accepted they don’t list it there.

They even state that: “The Biometric Residence Permit card may not be accepted in all our online journeys. You may need to provide additional documentation.”

Both HSBC and Barclays don’t accept them, not even to pick up a card from a branch.

EU identity cards are accepted but UK BRP and BRCs aren’t https://noidnosale.com/acceptable-forms-of-id-in-the-uk

If you managed to use yours for anything other than border control then it’s because whoever inspected it didn’t knew the rules.

Good point, rather interesting they state "in all our online journeys," rather than in-person.

Anytime I've had to verify identity online for bank account opening, it entailed taking a photo of my ID which then goes through automated ID checks via Jumio or similar APIs.

regulator KYC guidelines are general and require firms to check the identity of their potential clients without specifying exactly how

it's up to the service/goods provider what documents they accept which vary in terms of risk tolerance

In the UK a standard account (and many other services) is a legal right, as such the guidelines are quite specific.

GOV.UK seems conflicted about it lol "You usually do not need a BRP to open a bank account. Contact the bank to check if you’ll need a BRP or if you can use a different document." https://www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits/prove-your-st...

"The biometric residence permit is proof of the holder’s right to stay, work or study in the UK. It can also be used as a form of identification (for example, if they wish to open a bank account in the UK). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

:')

> temporary or permanent leave to remain.

Off-topic but non-native speakers must find this phrase so confusing the first time they see it.

It's actually called "indefinite leave to remain", which almost sounds as if they hadn't made their mind up about leave vs remain.

I'm glad they renamed it to "settled status" for EU citizens remaining after the UK decided to leave the EU.

They didn’t rename it to “settled status”, those are two separate things.

Settled and pre-settled status is used exclusively by the EU Settlement Scheme and refers to the 5 year requirement (pre-settled) for EU citizens wanting to apply.

I know, but it's similar and they could have chosen a similar name.

For any non-native speaker who’s confused, leave can mean the same thing as permission, which is how it’s being used here.

Just to further this who are still confused as to how tf leave became permission. It's a very British thing, I would hazard it might also be specifically English. I grew up in Scotland and we did use it, but I was in a border town, I would be surprised if it's used in Glasgow or Edinburgh (could be wrong) - it comes from the permission to not be at something. I would get "leave from school" meaning I had permission not to be at school, same thing for work. In my opinion, it's basically slang, I'm surprised to see it in official documents (so I guess it's not technically slang).

It didn't become, it had a sense of permission for a while

https://www.etymonline.com/word/leave

French has the same dual meaning in the verb laisser. It can be used when departing, or allowing. No idea if other Romance languages are similar.

I'd hazard that it came into English from French, or maybe the other way around.

Apparently some German in there too.

Etymology From Old French lesser, lessier, laissier (“to let, let go, leave”), from Latin laxō, laxāre (“to relax, loosen”); partly from or influenced by Old High German lāzan (“to let, let go, leave”) (German lassen), from Proto-West Germanic *lātan (“to let, leave, leave alone”).

I can't find anything about it and I've been poking around for the better part of 20 minutes, but my presumption would be this comes from Royal Court, to take leave of the court or the presence of the Royal estate? I'm guessing you would be granted permission to take your leave > take leave > permission. Total guess, however. Who knew leave could be so fun. ;)

Do you have annual leave from work in Scotland? Or is it called something else?

You know I've been thinking about this leave thing for over an hour now - it's got me super curious for some reason. I think there is a class thing here as well? I never ever heard anyone say that, take holiday, take time, take off, but take leave... it would sound very posh and jarring to hear someone say that, the only time I can think of was a friend who boarded in England and he took annual leave from boarding school (that's what originally made me think it's an English thing) - Fact is however, I have no idea what I'm talking about and could be writing fan fiction here. Maybe I've found my PhD, ha.

> non-native speakers must find this phrase so confusing

Even native speakers struggle with it (i.e. me, when I first saw it being used).

'Leave' in its form meaning 'permission' is only generally used in 'I am on leave from work today'. Many other Commonwealth and Anglophone countries (Australia, NZ, Canada, Singapore) just call it a 'visa validity period'; indefinite leave to remain is 'permanent residency'.

In the UK, at least, they don't call it "permanent residency" because it can be revoked quite easily. The "leave to remain" part is implying that one can stay in the country until further notice but does not imply a right to residence. Spend too long abroad over a period of a few years and there's a requirement to "reapply" which may or not be successful.

> Spend too long abroad over a period of a few years and there's a requirement to "reapply"

This applies to many other countries' so-called permanent residencies as well. It could be revoked if one spends a long period abroad, or collects a (local or foreign) criminal record, or otherwise gets in the granting government's bad books. They're permanent only in name.

Same in the US. As a green card holder, I cannot leave the U.S. for more than a year. If I do, I lose my permanent resident status.

My wife is Russian. This card (from another country) is what allowed her to retain bank accounts at various different institutions.

The "from another country" part is the important differentiator. I'd bet she opened the bank accounts in question outside the UK too?

Note that we're not living in the UK, but in Austria. But she had to use her Austrian card in Banks from other countries to demonstrate that she's settled. In our case Estonia, UK and Germany.

An EEA identity card is not the same as cards issued by the home office and ironically it’s a valid form of primary (class 1) ID in the UK.

People on skilled worker visa already don't receive these BRP cards in UK. You have to use your passport for everything that demands an ID.

I agree. Certain countries require their citizens who live abroad to have a physical proof of their foreign residency. I shudder at the thought of me having to explain to a Tunisian border agent that I live abroad and that they have to go on a website to verify that.

Many of us here are aware of how bad the US immigration system is. It's expensive, time-consuming and arbitrarily capricious. What many may not realize is how UK immigration law has been transformed in the last decade to be much, much worse.

Before ~2010, if a UK citizen married a non-UK citizen and wanted to get them residency and ultimately citizenship, it would be relatively simple and not terribly expensive. It took (IIRC) ~1 year to get ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain; basically a green card) for their spouse and 4-5 years to get citizenship. In the US that takes 4-5 years (1-2 years to get the green card then 3 years to get citizenship) generally.

Now that process typically takes ~10 years minimum, has all sorts of requirements and will cost you in excess of 10,000 pounds once you add up all the fees along the way. The requirements are things like a "Life in the UK" test but now also a hefty income requirement, going up to (IIRC) ~38,000 pounds per year from next year.

So I have to look at all moves the UK makes in this area through this lens of increasing isolationism post-Brexit. Physical residence cards do have advantages. You can use them as ID. They clearly have disadvantages too. For example, US LPRs are technically required to carry their green card on them at all times. If they lose it, a replacement costs ~$500 (last time I checked) and takes roughly ONE YEAR to replace. If you lose it while overseas, well that's going to be a huge problem. US citizens can get a passport within days if they try and within a day or two if lost while overseas from a US consulate or embassy.

At the same time, there's really no need for a physical card. Any government official or financial institution or employer should be able to verify your status electronically. I can't help but think that this is somehow designed to make life more difficult for legal migrants in some way though.

Nothing to do with Brexit - as you said this has been getting more difficult for decades. Post Brexit it has become easier for people from outside the EU to get some types of British visas so if anything the UK is less isolationist than when it made it very hard for anyone from outside the EU to enter.

MY biggest concern is that with any new system replacing a proven one.

The other is that right to work and right to rent checks may not work as expected. While the article says these can already be done online, not everyone doing them (the biggest problem will be landlords who own a single property) will know what they are supposed to do.

> Nothing to do with Brexit - as you said this has been getting more difficult for decades

Brexit has made it worse for UK citizens with non-UK spouses. When in the EU, the UK had to give residence permits to the non-EU spouses of EU citizens – except for its own citizens. So if an Irish citizen arrived in the UK with their American spouse, the UK had to give the American spouse a residency permit; however, if a UK citizen turned up with their American spouse, the UK was allowed to treat that American spouse as harshly as it liked.

But, the ECJ made some exceptions to that exception, which provided loopholes for UK citizens to get easy residency for their non-UK spouse. The first was the so-called "Surinder Singh Route", named for the 1992 ECJ judgement which established it – if a UK citizen and their non-EU spouse went and lived and worked in another EU country, e.g. in Dublin, for a reasonable period (never precisely defined, but 3 months was generally accepted as sufficient), then the UK had to give the non-EU spouse a residency permit on their return to the UK.

More recently, another ECJ judgement, the 2017 Lounes judgement, established that an EU citizen who moved to the UK, and then naturalised as a UK citizen, was to be evaluated under their non-UK EU citizenship when their spouse was applying for a residency permit – which meant some non-UK spouses could get residency permits under the liberal EU rules even without having to spend a period of residency elsewhere in the EU.

But, of course, Brexit has closed all these loopholes. So Brexit has made the situation objectively worse for non-UK spouses of UK citizens seeking permanent residency in the UK.

Govt policy and communication is pretty confusing around migration in the UK.

On the one hand, net legal migration in the UK is reaching new all time highs.

On the other hand, the main talking points for the current government is about "stopping the boats" and reducing migration.

If you Google "net migration UK" (in the UK) the first link is a policy document describing steps the Govt is doing to reduce migration:

https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2024/02/01/reducing-net-...

I'm a little surprised to hear "Stop the Boats" come from Britain. As the BBC points out, this policy and messaging was previously created and honed by Australia [1].

What you realize when you look into any of this is that it's not about stopping migration. It's about stopping the wrong kind of migration, specifcally undesirable migrants. The US had their own version of this with then-president Trump referring to Africa and Haiti as "sh*thole countries" [2], both the Trump and Biden administrations hid behind health concerns to stop immigration (ie Title 42 [3]) and now we're being forcefed a manufactured narrative around a "border crisis", which simply isn't true. Fun fact: the majority of undocumented migrants in the US are visa overstayers not border crossers [4].

Many, many years ago I remember hearing a phrase that underpinned UK immigration policy, which is "Britain is for the Britons". It seemed like this has only gotten worse.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64898507

[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-...

[3]: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-biden-border-title-42...

[4]: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/16/686056668/for-seventh-consecu...

My wife and I went through it starting in 2012, and were relieved to get through it all OK because by the time we finished I think the cost (and duration) for new applicants had roughly doubled compare to when we started it.

The £38K threshold is ridiculous. To provide some context for anyone lacking it, the median salary in the UK for 22 to 29 year olds is £30K for men and £28K for women. The only group with a median comfortably exceeding that threshold is men aged 40-59. There is no age group in which women's median salary exceeds £38K.

Prior to the changes made by Theresa May in 2012, it took 2 years for a spouse to be eligible for ILR and further year for citizenship. I believe in some cases it was possible for a spouse to immediately aquire ILR if the couple had lived together in marriage while abroad.

Now, it takes 5 years for ILR and the spouse of a British citizen is immediately eliable on acquiring ILR to apply for citizenship. A spouse would not normally be on the 10 year route to ILR, unless they depend on 3rd party sponsorship to meet the financial requirements.

It has become a lot more expensive with increased fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge. IMHO, the worst of it is having to apply 3 times over the 5 year period, all the stress and paperwork involved in proving compliance with the financial requirements, and that it discourages you from changing jobs.

Even after Googling I can't find the answer: what would you show then at the boarder? On their website, the "share code" seems to only be for non-governmental use.

Is your passport number then linked to the visa? What happens if you get a new passport? Does it work for non-biometric passports?

Or is there some kind of stable "citizen" identifier in the passport that the visa is linked to? I can't imagine it being a simple name + DoB lookup.

They already had Windrush scandal. I have no doubts this "invention" given a time will leave numerous victims in it's wake. There are so many ways it can fuck things up.

Oh and while reading the article I've discovered "right to rent". A citadel of freedom this country is. Are they taking lessons from former USSR?

I've already heard stories of people coming back to the UK from a trip abroad, and UK border staff insisted to see their BRP even though it's acceptable now for it to be digital. I'm assuming it's going to be a right pain in the arse for my wife when she comes back to the UK from visiting family abroad.

I recommend printing some documentation from the government website wherever it says that $x is allowed or $y is deprecated. It won't stop some officious c*nt at the border, but when they call their supervisor, the latter might be able to recognise enough of the words to look it up and figure it out.

The article states that the change is due later. I know someone who received a BRP just days ago and was told that the electronic visa system isn't yet available. So the BRP has always been and remains mandatory for travel, until these changes take effect.

As far as I know they are live. People are using the share codes for renting, etc. On /r/ukvisa I've seen a few stories already.

Most likely it would create quite a few problems for BRP holders even if an online check on UK border will be flawless.

1. To apply for a visa (e.g. Schengen one) one need a proof of residence. While EU hopefully will start accepting online proof (may be a couple year later, EU bureaucracy is slow) other countries likely will stop accepting visa applications from UK residents in the UK.

2. Before non-UK citizens can checkin on a flight to the UK from another country they must show either a visa or a BRP. Knowing how some countries operate (paper, paper, paper) they would likely will ignore this online stuff and refuse to board without a physical proof.

OK, but what does this mean for UK residents entering the Common Travel Area through Ireland? While not exactly the same, my wife is a Danish resident; when we travel in and out of the Schengen area, she needs to bring her residency card. While Danish passport control can phone up the right people, if she has forgotten her card, I doubt other Schengen area passport controls would/could.

They could then tell from her stamps, that she had overstayed her visa in the Schengen area, and would not permit her in, if she entered the Schengen area outside Denmark and without the residency card.

Is Irish passport control expected to look up UK residents' residency through the UK's website?

Are you talking about travelling to the UK via Ireland?

If so, the only time passports are typically checked is when you're about to board the plane. Even then it's just used for id purposes, it's not done by passport control. You don't even need a passport, just photo id, but it seems most people use their passport anyway.

It's not unheard of that when landing in the UK from Ireland, there's no passport control at all. That may depend on the airport though.

No, I am talking about entering the Common Travel Area (CTA) through Ireland. Suppose I am a Canadian citizen and a UK resident, and I live in Belfast. I've been to Nova Scotia and I am travelling back through Dublin. Will Dublin's passport control be available to determine my visa given my Canadian passport?

I don't believe Canadian nationals need a visa to enter Ireland.

But if you need to prove your UK residence status for whatever reason, you can log in to your UKVI account and generate a passcode that a third party can use to verify your status.

https://www.gov.uk/view-prove-immigration-status

While there is minimal or no passport control within the CTA, for example when travelling between UK and Ireland, the expectation is that the passenger is a citizen of a country whose nationals would not normally require a visa to enter either.

This alone may not be sufficiently proven by an ID document like driving license, and some airlines will only accept passport for travel.

https://help.ryanair.com/hc/en-gb/articles/12889174472721-Wh...

Having a long term residency visa in the UK, but an Indian passport for example, would not automatically qualify you for travel to Ireland without a separate visa, although lax checks within the CTA may, in theory, let you travel if no one looks hard enough and should an airline be satisfied with your UK driving licence alone (and assume you're either an Irish or British citizen).

The requirment is further complicated by the fact that some third country nationals holding either a used and valid UK or Irish short term (tourist) visa can travel to either countries without issues due to the British-Irish Visa Scheme/treaty, but the same courtesy wouldn't apply to a third country national with a (long term) UK BRP - they'd need a separate visa for Ireland.

Border checks or lack thereof in the CTA are a rather interesting subject matter.

> Is Irish passport control expected to look up UK residents' residency through the UK's website?

Yes they probably can and will do that if the need arises

I've never been asked for anything pertaining to the UK when entering Ireland anyway.

I go to Ireland regularly but I've decided never to visit the UK again or do business there since Brexit. If they don't want us Europeans there I don't want them :P

They will only ask if you're connecting there (or saying you're going there).

(And vice versa, you (should) go through the UK Border if you're connecting to Ireland through a UK airport)

Family members of EU citizens are allowed entry into and free movement within the Schengen area by law. Showing or even owning a residency card is not required to exercise that right, which makes it quite different to the situation in various other countries, where that right is actually tied to having completed some bureaucratic act in addition to qualifying for it.

Of course it makes it much easier – carrying a marriage certificate is obviously less practical than the card, and that's why it exists. But as far as I know, Schengen border posts are required to accept the marriage certificate as well.

A weird detail is that this right technically does not apply in the EU citizen's home country, but since you mentioned that Danish authorities can figure it out by phone, that shouldn't be an issue in your case.

> They could then tell from her stamps, that she had overstayed her visa in the Schengen area, and would not permit her in, if she entered the Schengen area outside Denmark and without the residency card.

All Frontex (Schengen border control) officials have access to VIS, the Visa Information System, which is part of SIS, the Schengen Information System.

As a result, they can verify residency status with nothing more than name and date of birth (or, of course, from a passport).

Ha, best part is in the first paragraph:

> in a bid to make its borders digital, which is in-line with developed countries like Australia.

lol. So England is not developed and compared to developed Australia. lol.

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