Reiding betwen the lies
July 25th, 2006The Register reports that the cost of passports will increase considerably yet again – this october – to £66(6) making it look increasingly likely that a stand alone pasport will be near the £93 mark by the ID card system is dumped upon the nation i.e. the government will crow that the ID card is in effect gratis. So where will the money go? Either to pump-prime the NIR system or for the closing down of UK borders that Reid seems hell bent on. You need a lot of money for watch towers and barbed wire around a whole island.
Either way it makes even more sense to renew your passport before NIR information auditing/stockpiling is a matter of course at the IPS.
I’ve just noticed the price rise is covered in the guardian too and they include a statement from NO2ID etc, hats off and may it continue.
Incidentally I have good word that travelling within the EU only UK immigration officials can actually be bothered to use machine readers, it would be nice to verify this.
July 25th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
And further to this:
3M Buys U.K. Passport Printer (07/21/2006)
3M Co., St. Paul, MN, agreed to buy Security Printing & Systems Ltd., a producer of finished, personalized passports and secure cards, Manchester, UK, for an undisclosed sum.
Security Printing has provided passports to the U.K. government for more than 40 years. The company uses radio frequency identification technology, which stores and retrieves data on small tags using radio waves and is less susceptible to fraud. The passports, first produced in December 2005, have a chip embedded in the cover with information such as place of birth, name and gender that older passports had printed inside.
“The addition of Security Printing to our line of products for secure documents such as passports, ID cards, driver’s licenses and visas, and secure document issuance systems, will allow us to deliver a full range of border and civil security solution products,” says David Cook, director, safety and security systems, 3M U.K.
[…]
http://www.gammag.com/
So the people who are going to be handed a license to fleece the British public are once again an american company.
Her Majesty’s Stationers used to print British Passports, but that company was privatized in 1996 (I believe), opening the door for any Tom Dick or Harry to take over this very important set of tasks.