Immigration: EU Nationals

(asked on 19th October 2021) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the administrative requirements on EU citizens with Settled Status to prove their status without physical documentation when accessing essential services.


Answered by
Kevin Foster Portrait
Kevin Foster
This question was answered on 22nd October 2021

We are enabling other government departments and public authorities to be able to automatically access immigration status information. Currently, this includes the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and NHS England and Wales.

The data made available is specific to the need of each department and contains only the necessary information to inform their decision making. By making data available in this way, we are reducing the number of occasions on which an individual has to prove their status in the UK. The Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Privacy Notice provides information about how we share data with other government departments.

When applying for banking services, all individuals are required to provide proof of their identity as part of anti-money laundering, regulatory ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) checks.

We have produced guidance for financial providers to help them understand the documents we issue, including eVisas, and how they can be used as proof of identity for the purposes of KYC checks. This can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/biometric-residence-documents-information-for-financial-providers

As detailed in this guidance, financial institutions can check someone’s identity, using the online ‘View and Prove’ service at:

https://www.gov.uk/check-immigration-status.

This enables checks to be conducted without physical documents changing hands or the checker having to assess the authenticity of the documents and whether the person presenting it is the rightful holder.

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