Woman stranded in Spain after UK's eVisa system mistakes her for twin sister

feintruled

I have identical twin boys - when signing up for a bank account app and while completing all the associated hoops for ID, the second to do it got the rather dystopian error message 'an account has already been registered with this face'

zabil

I've had issues with this e-visa implementation and was told I could not board flights. As a someone in tech, I feel this a classic case study of how NOT to roll out a release and develop a solution. The release was chaotic, none of the airlines staff were trained on how to use this. So they still insisted on the expired cards and then picked on the expiry dates. Next, almost everyone makes you generate a verification share code in front of them by logging into the e-visa website even if the rules say I can print it out and just use the code. It takes a few minute to get on the website and generate one. This solution assumed that everyone has access to a smart phone and a good wifi connection to make this work. Whoever built this didn't test it on the ground.

crooked-v

I suspect this case has origins less to do with the programming itself, and more to do with UK bureaucracy just not giving a shit, as with the post office scandal where authorities, including the legal system, blindly believing in the outsourced systems led to hundreds of false prosecutions and thirteen suicides ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal ).

chainier

It'd be lovely if articles like this named the people responsible for actually building the systems. It's almost certainly never a government department. They'll have paid one the many software/technology companies to build this thing. Who will be hiding their shoddy crap behind their client (the government department that paid for it). There are some patterns that I'm sure would start to arise from naming the consultancies that are churning out crap.

Havoc

One of the reasons I’m applying for a British passport. Existing purely in some mystery database like that seems risky long term

poizan42

> A Home Office spokesperson said: “Over 10 million people have already successfully used eVisas to prove their immigration status. ..." So how many people did not successfully use it? Could be 100 million for all we know. Do they think just throwing out a large number without anything to compare it to is somehow proving something?

Freak_NL

This is not a software issue (not directly). Sure, the software has a bug. Software does. Almost always. What is broken here is that it is possible to get stuck in an airport with no possibility of escalating sensibly to a chain of human beings with agency to resolve it. You could have a software process which works 99.9% of the time, and have staff at hand which could solve any solvable remaining issues like this one. They call the Home Office internal hotline, explain the issue, resolve it by manually interfering on the spot (and have a bug filed), and everyone carries on. Instead, we demand a 100% correct system, and save money on actually having people around who can deal with the edge cases and make sure everyone has a good time. Of course, getting a project from 99.9% to 100% costs a lot of money, because that includes literally all edge cases ever (getting to 100% is as likely as reaching ∞ by multiplying any given starting number by 2 until you reach it), and so it will likely end up being more expensive in budget overruns than the 99.9% plus humans system. Obviously, politicians must choose for the fictional 100% case, because they can't afford the cheaper 99.9% plus human one.

MarceliusK

"Known issue" and "you may not board the flight home" really shouldn't appear in the same system. If a database error can effectively invalidate your legal status at the border, there needs to be a fallback that doesn't involve spending hours on the phone

sega_sai

Unfortunately there are more and more cases where "The computer says no" and then there is no human to talk to, and you are bounced back from one automated system to another... I had recently a case where my title (Mr) ended up as my middle name in the system of the operating airline (it was perfectly correct in the system of the airline that I booked the ticket through). Two hours of talking to those two airlines did not help me. I had to buy another ticket... I think this starts to remind me the movie Brazil...

rkuska

My favorite part of the UK’s eVisa was taking a portrait photo of my 1.5y old. I was losing my sanity over all the refusals (app refusing the photos).

jonathanlydall

The terrible part to me is them saying "the majority of cases are resolved within 24 hours", this should be like a 15-minute delay at most when you can present your passport with its number which also matches your biometrics (as would be the case with twins). I myself recently had a 10-minute or so delay due to a visa issue. I was departing from Johannesburg and was going to use my Italian passport for entry into New Zealand. I had acquired an NZeTA visa about 15 months before but didn't think to consider until checking in that it was against my previous passport number which I had since renewed. When the agent said they were just having to double check my visa (while my wife's and children' were fine), the fact the passport had been renewed occurred to me and I told the agent about it which probably saved a couple of minutes of them having to work out this was the issue. They phoned New Zealand, explained the situation and within about 10 minutes the New Zealand side updated their system and I was able to complete my check-in.

Integer

This sounds like a confused support agent. The system lacks a notion of twins - it doesn't link accounts via biometrics. The names are similar but not equal and the passport numbers would also be different, so how would their accounts be linked? Perhaps they used the same email when registering by mistake?

xnx

Not sure if related, but the Spanish security kiosks are shockingly bad they had great difficulty reading faces, fingerprints, and even passports when held perfectly flat on their reading glass.

leephillips

“Webb said Home Office staff promised her over the phone the problem would be fixed, though a confirmation email was then sent to her sister instead of to her.” Comedy gold.

vermooten

Edge case that needs fixing. Move on.

ninalanyon

The UK seems to be uniquely incompetent when it comes to these sorts of organizational tasks.

aftbit

I've seen more and more instances of this. Sometimes it's a feature in disguise - humans are easier to spoof than software - but mostly it's laziness or cost cutting. For example, I went to the bank down the road and tried to withdraw a few thousand dollars. This isn't atypical for me - I do this every few months. I had my ID and knew my account number, but I didn't have my debit card. They essentially told me "system says no" and that there wasn't anything they could do. This is a feature for the bank - a human teller might be talked into pressing the wrong button by fraud. Instead, I had to go home and get my debit card. By presenting that bit of plastic, system said yes, and I was good to go with my cash. For another example, I was recently at an airport listening to a family struggling to get on a flight. They were checked in with seats assigned (confirmed by the gate agent) but the system refused to give the green "ok to board" light for them. Rather than just put them on the flight and file a ticket to fix the record after the fact, the agent just stood there churning for a while until a supervisor was able to sprint over from the other end of the airport. The supervisor didn't use their superior access level to override the broken system. Instead, they used their superior knowledge on how to push the system through its bug. They kicked the family off the flight, unassigned their seats, put them on standby, approved them for (random) empty seats, and then let them board... but now they weren't sitting together in the seats they had before. I ended up missing that (extremely delayed) flight for boring reasons related to ongoing engine problems and upcoming connections so I don't know how it worked out but I hope they got to sit together in the end!

ChoGGi

“In the rare cases where errors are identified, the majority of cases are resolved within 24 hours.” On whose dime? "We regularly see people not only denied boarding, but also compensation," Oh.