Often when carrying out my duties on behalf of my company I am requested to provide evidence of identity beyond my usual company ID for inspection by some suit and enough brocade to decorate the entire US fleet. This invariably means offering up my passport. I have nothing against carrying this cumbersome little item with me at all times, what bugs me is the time that it takes for 'Jobsworth' to scrutinise the document. Is it perhaps part of their duty to commit my passport number to memory or are they trying to feign intellectual capacity beyond their calling by pretending to read the little red book cover to cover.
Human nature dictates that the more people there are to be attended to in what is usually a lengthy queue, the longer it takes 'Jobsworth' to process the information for each individual. I don't expect him, or her, to smile at my photograph. I am not smiling so why should they – at least I had an excuse to look miserable in my photograph – the weather had been awful, I was cold, wet, windswept, and had managed to drop Coronation chicken on my shirt at lunch; thank heaven for monochrome, I say. Passport photos are not meant to be flattering anyway. I suspect 'Jobsworth' is always miserable.
It seems to me that the more technologically advanced we all become (however reluctant we may be) the more we seem to become dependent on the old fashioned means of identification. Could this be part of a public backlash against fingerprints, keyfobs and iris scans? Are the newer technologies fatally flawed, are they less secure than they are made out to be, is it an issue of civil liberties or are we all afraid that placing your eyeball in close proximity to a photo lens will see our soul sucked into the aperture.
All these questions cross my mind as I watch 'Jobsworth' thumbing his grubby fingers through the pages of my passport. I probably have more fingerprints in my passport than I have stamps for the numerous countries that I have visited.
I don't want a new passport,or ID card all I want is that when they finally get to the crucial page, the one displaying my picture, I want them to flip the page and the photo to say BOO!!!!
Human nature dictates that the more people there are to be attended to in what is usually a lengthy queue, the longer it takes 'Jobsworth' to process the information for each individual. I don't expect him, or her, to smile at my photograph. I am not smiling so why should they – at least I had an excuse to look miserable in my photograph – the weather had been awful, I was cold, wet, windswept, and had managed to drop Coronation chicken on my shirt at lunch; thank heaven for monochrome, I say. Passport photos are not meant to be flattering anyway. I suspect 'Jobsworth' is always miserable.
It seems to me that the more technologically advanced we all become (however reluctant we may be) the more we seem to become dependent on the old fashioned means of identification. Could this be part of a public backlash against fingerprints, keyfobs and iris scans? Are the newer technologies fatally flawed, are they less secure than they are made out to be, is it an issue of civil liberties or are we all afraid that placing your eyeball in close proximity to a photo lens will see our soul sucked into the aperture.
All these questions cross my mind as I watch 'Jobsworth' thumbing his grubby fingers through the pages of my passport. I probably have more fingerprints in my passport than I have stamps for the numerous countries that I have visited.
I don't want a new passport,or ID card all I want is that when they finally get to the crucial page, the one displaying my picture, I want them to flip the page and the photo to say BOO!!!!
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