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Written question asked by Keith Vaz (Labour) on Wednesday, 6 February 2019, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 8 February 2019. It was answered by Caroline Nokes (Conservative) on Thursday, 14 February 2019 on behalf of the Home Office.

Immigration: EU Nationals

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people who have downloaded the EU Exit: ID Document Check app.

Answer

EU citizens make a huge contribution to our economy and society, and we want them to stay. The EU Settlement Scheme enables them to do so.

The scheme opened on a trial basis at the end of August and the second phase of live testing ended on 21 December. In light of the positive progress, we commenced the wider public implementation of the scheme on 21 Janu-ary. The ‘EU Exit: ID Document Check’ app, which is publicly available from the Google Play Store, has had over 100,000 downloads since 15 November when it was made available. Thousands of EU citizens have successfully ap-plied using the ‘EU Exit: Identity Document Check’ app since then. The app is free to download, and we do not expect everyone who does so to be a poten-tial applicant.

The beta test phases have provided us with a useful opportunity to prove var-ious elements of the scheme functionality and processes, and we will continue to improve the system before the scheme fully opens by 30 March. Once the system is fully open, there will be over 50 locations across the UK where ap-plicants can have their identity document scanned. Applicants will also be able to post identity documents to the Home Office to be checked and returned quickly.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
217463
Session
2017-19
Subjects
Applications Software Immigration EU nationals
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk