Spy Review

We know there is now a huge arrey of spy gadgets available capable of fantastic surveilance work, but it appears sometimes these gadgets are being used for the wrong reasons. According to this Telegraph article, a couple of fraudsters have been aiding Chinese immigrants to cheat on their UK citizenship tests.

The citizenship test required the immigrants to be tested on their knowledge of Britain, and since they did not have a very good grasp of Britain yet, their masterminds devised a rather ingenious sytem of hooking them up with covert communication devices to pass on information so they could successfully answer enough questions correctly to be considered for citizenship.

It worked like this. The scamsters set up various pieces of equipment like hidden cameras, transmitters and surveillance gadgets in a car outside the centre where the immigrants were being tested. They were covertly relaying answers to those taking the test, who were obviously fitted with hidden receivers, to tick the appropriate answers. The scamsters were obviously being paid generously by those taking the tests for aiding them.

Whilst they bungled this time, it is feared many people in the past may have earned their citizenship by cheating by being invoved in elaborate schemes such as this one. Whilst I am happy for deserving immigrants to settle in this country, as they can and have played an important part in British life from a social, cultural and economic perspective, this system should not be misused in anyway and deny perhaps more deserving people who might contribute more to British life.

There is more on this in the Telegraph article.