Another chance to be annoying

[Alaric]

A latest Home Office initiative
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09 ... -identify/

Don't you think that with notoriously incompetent authorities involved on both sides of the check, the press is going to be full of stories in a few months time of pensioners with a lifetime of banking with the same bank being accused of being an illegal immigrant?

In any case, is it not legal for a non-resident to hold a British bank account? So if a Bank comes asking someone legal to visit, but not to work, says "just visiting".

[chas49]

A latest Home Office initiative
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09 ... -identify/

Don't you think that with notoriously incompetent authorities involved on both sides of the check, the press is going to be full of stories in a few months time of pensioners with a lifetime of banking with the same bank being accused of being an illegal immigrant?

In any case, is it not legal for a non-resident to hold a British bank account? So if a Bank comes asking someone legal to visit, but not to work, says "just visiting".

I suspect you may be right about the likelihood of some false positives. Let's hope there are a few more checks beyond simple name matching before accounts are frozen or closed!

Re your second point, according to the reporting on the BBC this morning, banks will be matching account holder names against a list of "known illegal immigrants" - so these are people who do not have the right to be here - they can't just claim to be visiting as presumably they've done that and overstayed (or otherwise breached immigration law).

Nevertheless, it's bound to cause problems....

[Alaric]

Re your second point, according to the reporting on the BBC this morning, banks will be matching account holder names against a list of "known illegal immigrants" - so these are people who do not have the right to be here - they can't just claim to be visiting as presumably they've done that and overstayed (or otherwise breached immigration law).

You can be legal to visit but not to work. That applies to Americans and Australians amongst others. In fact a visitor without the right to work, but opening a bank account could find themselves on the list as there is no system of "counting people in and counting them out" at a personal level. I would have thought they can do something within Government. Those monitoring illegal working should compare notes with those issuing NI Numbers and collecting tax.

[chas49]

Re your second point, according to the reporting on the BBC this morning, banks will be matching account holder names against a list of "known illegal immigrants" - so these are people who do not have the right to be here - they can't just claim to be visiting as presumably they've done that and overstayed (or otherwise breached immigration law).

You can be legal to visit but not to work. That applies to Americans and Australians amongst others. In fact a visitor without the right to work, but opening a bank account could find themselves on the list as there is no system of "counting people in and counting them out" at a personal level. I would have thought they can do something within Government. Those monitoring illegal working should compare notes with those issuing NI Numbers and collecting tax.

I agree that people can be legal to visit but not work. But if they are legal, they won't be on the list of "known illegal migrants". In any case I would have thought the definition of migrant excludes visitors. It's bound to go wrong..

[toofast2live]

I would have thought the vast majority of illegal immigrants' names will be unknown to the authorities, and will use cash. A waste of money so that a government dept can be seen "doing something".