Forget your photo-ID for your EasyJet flight? Just go print one up!
Don't worry if you show up for your domestic UK EasyJet flight without the mandatory photo ID the airline now requires; the helpful check-in clerks will direct you to the nearby train station where they'll make you up a free photo-card to go with a rail-pass, should you ever decide to buy one. Ah, security.
"They suggested I go to the railway station within the terminal, buy a season ticket and with it get a photocard, which they'd then accept as ID," Wilson said. "In fact, it was even easier and didn't cost a penny. Southern Rail gave me a photocard and sent me upstairs to the public photo booth. I asked if I needed to come back to the ticket office with the photos; they said, no, I should just fill in the card myself then seal down the plastic covering."Photo ID - how about this one I made earlier?
the latest
latest episodes
Does this count as karma? Either way it brought a smile to my face.
Perfect story. Love the comment about bare hands.
While this is a nice of easyjet's staff -- am I missing something, or doesn't this sort of negate the whole point of using photo-id for any kind of verification (either making sure that you are the intended traveller OR that you're not a super-villian/terrorist). If anyone can get ID from a railway station with ANY name on it, isn't it meaningless?
That does kind of point out the farce of the whole thing, doesn't it. We need photo ID. We don't care how accurate it is as long as the photo is you.
In other news, I learned the hard way that EasyJet requires passports (or national IDs) for flights within the EU.
I tried to board a flight from Paris to Berlin by showing only my French residency card (I'm an American citizen temporarily living in France), and was told that I needed a passport (mine was in Lyon). This is not an EU rule, but rather an EasyJet rule -- theoretically Schengen allows free movement within the EU.
I ended up losing that ticket, spending 150€ and taking the bus to Dortmund and then a train to Berlin.
Security, like water, always seems to find it's own level.
eventually the Walmart minds that produced the TSA will force passengers to do self searches - and charge them for it.
tightened security everywhere...
Recently my German passport had expired, so I went to my municipal office to get a new one. Fine, nowadays you have to give your finger prints for a new passport. But the lady also told me that new rules require that also my birth certificat is needed - since my old passport and my *ID-card* (mine is still valid and is anyway mandatory in Germany) could have been forged.
So the next time I visited my parents I went to their local municipal office, identified myself with my *ID-card* (!) and got a copy of my birth certificat, which was happily accepted back home for my new passport.
Needless to say that of all German official documents a birth certificate is probably one of the most easiest to forge...
Security theatre? Fantastic. The only thing that reassures me about this is that at least the entity that provides the DIY IDs is semi-seperate (so I assume because it is Southern Rail, but it is not outside of the terminal). Then again, that's not exactly reassuring, it just keeps the whole story from being even more ridiculous. If EasyJet had provided the DIY IDs I might have cried from an allergy to idiocy.
I'm sure that malefic terrorists won't find this information and use it to forge an ID and crash a plane they snuck on.
Honestly, I am sure. Terrorist attacks are a bogeyman.
but a very lucrative boogeyman.
A while ago there was case here in Canada of a guy stabbing a stranger to death on a long-haul bus. It was a particularly gruesome tabloid-y case, so all the media outlets whipped up as much fear as they could.
Greyhound (the intercity bus line) has responded by instituting the most laughably ineffectual security measures, which recently provided me some free entertainment.
I took a bus from Edmonton to Calgary for the weekend a week ago. On the way down, there was no security stuff at all. On the way back, though, the lineup passed a security checkpoint, and entered a secured waiting area.
First, the checkpoint: One guy sitting at a table, who peers into each carry-on bag (the list of contraband deadly weapons includes corkscrews, pointy scissors, metal cutlery) and watches over a couple of little plastic bins into which you empty your pockets of metal. Another fellow does the standard metal detector wand dance.
In the lineup for the checkpoint, I realized I had my knife attached to my keychain, which would have to sit in the little bin. I took out the keychain, fumbled the knife off it (this took a while), and put it in a side pocket of my backpack. This of course was sufficient concealment that the bag-searcher didn't find it. Nobody of course took the least notice of what I was doing.
The secure area consisted of a square defined by those 3-foot high posts with ropes stretched between them. Those who had come to see off their partners stood by the edge of the rope, and chatted, hugged and kissed over the rope.
Checked bags, which of course are not searched, were left near the door to the buses, so a bus station staffer could carry them back to the bus. They were left there, right next to the exit from the secured area to the buses, until after we had boarded. A couple of people, remembering a book or snack they had left in a checked bag, paused in boarding to retrieve their stuff.
I was charmed by the naive simplicity of it all. I don't know if anyone else was amused by the procedure; I didn't notice any smirking, though it felt like mine was only barely contained...
Well, it's not like the UK ever had a problem with terrorism.
Oh, wait...
the Greyhound Dance is to keep away Lawyer Vampires.
I am most devoutly hoping that some insider somewhere is keeping a list of present TSA staff names, to be leaked to the Web the same way the British National Party neo-nazi membership was leaked. With the Grand Old Depression upon us, I hope none of them ever work again
"Check-in staff also have extensive training in assessing whether a passenger is a security risk," the spokesman said.
Would this "extensive training" by any chance be "look for brown skin and a beard"?
This could as easily be a case of low-level employees realizing the security theater is ridiculous and circumventing it themselves. "Yeah, my boss says you need a photo ID. It's stupid, but you can print one yourself down the street." In other words, it's possible we should be praising the resourcefully subversive agents instead of snarking about them.
Christ I love the UK - I feel so safe here, knowing that complete and utter idiots are watching my every move. They still do the "please throw your highly explosive bottle of Evian into this receptacle filled with other high explosives" thing at airports to this day. Marvellous.
The spread of photo id is insidious. I am planning to travel to Shetland from Scotland this year and as far as I can see this is now impossible without photo ID, even though though you are not leaving the "United Kingdom".
You cab fly or go by Northlink Ferries whose policy is given here...
http://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/faqs-id.html
Well of course *you* could do it that way! But if you *looked like a terrorist*, I don't think so!!
Also: *every*body wearing a suit is an upright capital-reeking servant of the status quo AND a pillar of the community!!
Yeah: photo ID requirement. That'll stop a suicide bomber.
Don't worry, they won't allow you to do that if you're Arabian ;)
@#7 Takuan:
Will we then get bonuses for catching dangerous items and passengers? Because then I think I just made rent.
I can just see it : Automated X-ray machine: "Place your explosive package on the scanner. Select credit or debit card. Please enter amount of explosive. Please enter PIN number. Remove your explosive package. Thank you for patronizing TSA. BEEP"
I worked for a major southern California aerospace company. They suddenly had a rule that payroll employees themselves would be passing out the paycheck when you show your id.
The guy came around and I swapped my id with my friend standing right next to me. I'm white, he's black.
I presented his id with my white hand and got his check. He did the same and got mine. Then right in front of the guy that was supposed to be making sure everyone got their own check, we swapped them back to the rightful owner.
The guy looked up BUT DIDN'T GET IT. Went right back to passing out paychecks.
Rockwell. Space shuttle. B1 Bombers. Oh well.
The rail photocard is only there to stop multiple people using the season ticket. The photocard has a short, unique number, and when you buy a season ticket that number is on the ticket. If you're asked to show your ticket, the two numbers must match, and the photo must look like you.
That's why Southern Rail don't care who the photo looks like, they wouldn't have a problem with buying a season ticket for someone else.
I've been to a sports match where I had to get out of the car, was frisked by security, would get back in the car (which was not searched), parked and walked out to the match. Hmmm...