Personal details of Referee - Naturalisation application
Dear Home Office,
The naturalisation form (paper/online) states that passport number of the referee must be provided, if they are a British Citizen.
1) Although the referee may know the applicant as a friend, colleague or in a professional capacity, are they obliged to share sensitive personal details (date of birth & passport number) with the applicant?
2) Will the application be rejected if the applicant does not provide the details (date of birth & passport number) for the referees?
3) If the details (date of birth & passport number) are deemed mandatory, is there any plan for Home Office to collect the sensitive information directly from the nominated referees?
Yours faithfully,
Shankar
Dear Shankar,
Please be aware that we have decided to handle your correspondence of 13
January 2019 outside the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.
This is because it does not meet the criteria for a Freedom of Information
request, as it does not ask for recorded information.
Below is a link to the ICO guidance for the criteria for valid requests
under the Act:
[1]https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...
We will provide an answer to your query, but it will be answered outside
of the provisions of the Act. You should expect to receive a response in
due course.
N McKenzie
Home Office
Dear Shankar
Thank you for the email,
It is a pre requisite to have a referee with the applications, however it
is not mandatory to supply their passport number. In each instance whereby
you acquire a referee then it is always expected that you have sought
their permission beforehand and that they are happy for you to supply the
Home Office with their details.
If the applicant does not wish to supply these details then a member of
staff based at the Home Office have the capacity to contact the referee to
ascertain any further information.
The answer to whether the application will be rejected is no. Only if the
applicant refuses to supply a referee would we consider refusal. If there
was a valid reason substantiated with evidence then we may consider
waiving the requirement.
Regards
M Goode
UK Visas and Immigration
[1]www.gov.uk/ukvi
We would like to hear about your experience and invite you to spend a few
moments completing this customer satisfaction survey:
[2]www.homeofficesurveys.homeoffice.gov.uk/s/108105TAZNG
From: Shankar [[3]mailto:[FOI #544313 email]]
Sent: 13 January 2019 13:11
To: FOI Requests
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Personal details of Referee -
Naturalisation application
Dear Home Office,
The naturalisation form (paper/online) states that passport number of the
referee must be provided, if they are a British Citizen.
1) Although the referee may know the applicant as a friend,
colleague or in a professional capacity, are they obliged to share
sensitive personal details (date of birth & passport number) with the
applicant?
2) Will the application be rejected if the applicant does not
provide the details (date of birth & passport number) for the referees?
3) If the details (date of birth & passport number) are deemed
mandatory, is there any plan for Home Office to collect the sensitive
information directly from the nominated referees?
Yours faithfully,
Shankar
From: Digital Correspondence Allocation Team
Sent: 18 January 2019 15:10
To: Further Nationality Enquiries
Subject: FW: Freedom of Information request - Personal details of Referee
- Naturalisation application - ACD
Dear Colleague/s,
We are allocating this email to your unit as we believe you are best
placed to respond. Please note that this email has come from a public
website so only general information should be disclosed.
If you consider that this case is not for yourself or your area, then
please forward onto the correct unit or return it to us with a suggestion
of whom to allocate it to.
Please note that we are an allocation team/hub and do not draft/send
responses to customers.
In accordance with the new data regulations we have updated our Privacy
Information Notice and you can find out more by going to:
[4]https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...
Or:
[5]https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...
Regards
C d’Ambrumenil
Digital Correspondence Allocation Team (DCAT)
Customer Correspondence Hub (CCH)
Customer, Performance and Improvement (CPI)
UK Visas and Immigration
7^th floor Lunar House
Wellesley Road, Croydon, CR9 2BY
Driving improved delivery for customers, supporting secure decisions.
[6]cid:image001.png@01D2BF66.BCA70EC0
From: FOI Requests
Sent: 14 January 2019 08:47
To: Digital Correspondence Allocation Team
Subject: FW: Freedom of Information request - Personal details of Referee
- Naturalisation application
DCA,
Please see below for your attention. This e-mail was received in the FOI
inbox, but is to be handled as ‘business as usual’ correspondence. Please
advise the team dealing with it that a response needs to be sent within 20
working days.
Thank you,
Noel Mckenzie
Information Rights Team, Knowledge and Information Management Unit
Performance, Assurance and Governance Directorate
Capabilities & Resources
Home Office
Lower Ground Floor | Seacole | 2 Marsham Street | London SW1P 4DF
Tel: 020 7035 6351
[7]www.gov.uk/home-office
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