immigrants or others without documentation (and also a pawn shop question)

[smallbrownfrog]

How hard or easy would it be in London in the early 2000's to live without a birth certificate or other documentation? In the US employers want your social security number and driver's license (or a state ID if you don't drive) before they give you a job. What is the vital identification in the UK

Comments

[bopeepsheep]

would one need identification in order to sell something at a pawn shop
Yes, but in practice this apparently doesn't have to be very good ID. We had someone using our address and several different identities - inc. my ex's - to pawn things c.2004. Contacting the shop to let them know the problem didn't stop the letters of 'confirmation' coming (for each pawned item), until I contacted their head office!

[thephoenixboy]

In terms of jobs, you tend to need a National Insurance number (or I guess some proof of the reason you don't have one). I could see that causing problems if the employer is above board.

[myfirstkitchen]

Jobs would probably be dodgy cash in hand bar work etc - I haven't had a job in years where I haven't had to prove my right to work in the UK via usually my passport (birth certificate works, I don't have a driving licence) and National Insurance number. https://www.gov.uk/check-an-employees-right-to-work-documents

A lot of volunteering from 2002 onwards also required a CRB check, now a DBS check (Wikipedia will help you there).

In the early 2000s I needed a guarantor to rent a crappy shared house.

Rubbish pawn shops don't check too carefully, hence stolen guitars et al appearing in our local independents regularly. The chains - Cash Converters etc - are more rigorous.

[veronica_milvus]

Yep, National Insurance number needed. This is usually handed out to kids at the age of 15 to 16 and is needed to register with the tax authorities and to claim benefits etc. An employer should not give you a job without one.

I guess menial jobs that are paid "cash in hand" might be possible - cleaning, bar work, fruit picking, casual babysitting, that sort of thing.

Never been to a pawn shop. I'd never even seen one until about 10 years ago.

[biascut]

Passports are the usual documentation for employment, and employers got a lot stricter around the mid-2000s, so that any employer had to see a passport before they would pay the first pay cheque. Before that I got a few jobs where I was supposed to bring a passport in but given that I'm white and have an English accent it wasn't a huge deal if I didn't get around to it for the whole two years I had the job.

Not having a NI number would be more of a problem, because that's how your tax is calculated. However, it's only in the last couple of years that the tax has started to be done through a computer system that checks both ways, so back in early 2000s you might be able to get away with a made-up one and if anyone noticed the problem, go, "really? Huh, I was sure that was right - I'll check it tonight and let you know tomorrow. Oh bother I forgot to look last night, I'll definitely check tomorrow...." Given a fairly small and informal workplace, you could spin that out for a while.

[bopeepsheep]

c.2005 someone was working and paying NI using my NI number (I only discovered this when deferring my student loan; I needed to get a certificate from the jobcentre and when they looked up my NI number it returned two records). No idea how that was followed up, but I was told the most likely situation was that someone had made it up - since it was valid (correct check letter on the end, a 1 in 4 chance) the employer wasn't ever told it was wrong and so the employee was getting away with it until then.

[biascut]

I nearly managed it when I started this job in the summer. I'd been fully registered on the system when I needed my NI number to log-in to something, and I discovered I'd written it wrong on the application form and it had gone onto the system wrong. I don't know at what stage it would have been noticed and triggered some sort of alert!

[auntyros]

It would be rather pleasing if all their NI contributions got counted towards your pension entitlement!