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I've worked on a variety of large UK government systems for the past ten years.

This blog encapsulates the problem of writing government services/software, which often results in strange outcomes.

Writing software for government is essentially the codification of centuries worth of Acts of Parliament.

Now imagine building the HMPO passport system, and then some underlying Law/Act is changed or repealed etc.

Now someone has to find and change everything that the Law/Act affected in all systems.

Now consider that the government frequently outsources this work to expensive consultancies who are motivated to elongate contracts and extract maximum value from the client... And ideally become entrenched.

All whilst building systems of varying quality and inflexibility so that the next time that a Law/Act is changed then this whole process repeats.

There is no central decision making authority to wrangle this problem (there used to be Spend Controls), which is why Government services delivery is so expensive.

Haskell has an interesting syntax: it is intuitive after someone explains it to me, but not intuitive much before the explanation.

I don't think it's because I'm used to Algol-based languages (C, Python, etc.). Every Haskell code I've seen is plagued with a plethora of operators which aim to make the code concise but it's not obvious what they do just by looking at them: https://academy.fpblock.com/haskell/tutorial/operators/

For the benefit of anyone else doing this in Japan, these are the documents I had to submit. It will be different depending on circumstance, in particular I think the author may also be born outside the UK which may require other/more documents.

Anyway I had to submit:

Certified copy of my birth certificate, order from the UK general register office.

Original (not photocopy) of Japanese family register and translation.

Certificate of acceptance of notification of birth, original and translation.

Original Marriage certificate and translation.

Colour photocopy of every page of my childs Japanese passport.

Copy photocopy of the passport of an American or British citizen who confirms that child is mine.

The process is pretty unclear, and in general you seem to have to just keep submitting documents until they are satisfied.

I too have enjoyed a game of *Passport Application* by proxy.

One of the interesting rules the OP doesn't appear to mention is the 'mutable history' rule. Herein, the facts contained in a single document can alter over even short periods of time requiring that a document, already scanned into the Examiners system of fact recording, can be required to be returned for subsequent scans. Verifying documents have not altered in their facts is, some say, tacit acknowledgement by the Examiner breed that a multiverse exists.

The communication channel between the "NPC" telephone agents and the Examiners appears to be somewhat akin to prayer, only vague inferences can truly be received.

Aside, I suspect the OP maybe be a Mornington Crescent aficianado; a game seemingly similar in rule-topology to the aforementioned Passport Application.

I love this. It starts as a parody, then slowly morphs into a serious and elegant solution to the "game". By the end, I almost wish I could play it myself. Bravo.

Not only can you complete a UK Passport Application completely online (save for mailing any required documentations to HMPO), you can apply for a brand new passport as a "new" citizen (by adoption, naturalisation, or descent), online, from outside the UK, with just a mobile device without downloading some special app, including taking the photos.

Sure, you can play it on "hard mode " and do it with paper and pen for the lulz, but my experience was extremely efficient, fast, and straight-forward.

I had to do a MN1 application for my US-born daughter as both me and my partner were born abroad. As OP alludes to this is a sort of side quest called "registration" which if you don't do it before the child is 18 lapses (although I think there are still routes to obtain citizenship in these circs).

The most difficult part of the process (not dealt with in this version of Passport Application but maybe a future DLC pack?) was actually finding someone who could certify my evidence (you are meant to submit originals but they keep the docs including passports for 3-6 months which is a bit unrealistic if you are living abroad). I can't remember the exact rules but it wasn't possible to use a US notary or a normal solicitor certification process and instead I needed to go to a council office.

After calling about 5 councils all of whom disavowed any knowledge of the process or its requirements I ended up finding someone at Islington Council who was delightfully helpful. But it was one of the more frustrating UK government interactions I've had.

I just went through hell this with one of my daughters. She was born in Japan and I had a hard time getting my mother’s surname matching what was on my birth certificate.

Long story short, I demonstrated I was born in England and that I have citizenship (a passport) so no matter the possibility, it must be something that can be passed on. That doesn’t match the guidelines of documents required but it’s much less of a pain I reckon.

> What are the base cases? A base case is an ancestor whose Britishness does not depend on a parent, e.g. someone who was naturalised, or born in the UK before 1983 (which makes one unconditionally british regardless of parents). That's right, further into the future we get from 1983, the taller these call-stacks can get.

This is insane to me, coming from a country that simply has a central database of all citizens and foreign residents, and a citizenship check is probably something like a single SELECT on an SQL table.

Trying to track down some other reference, I see that there was work on formalising British nationality -- in Prolog! -- in 1986: https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rak/papers/British%20Nationality%2...

I played this a few years ago.

Despite being born in the UK to a British father my character wasn't previously British due to parents being unmarried and being born after 1983 but before the 2006 rules update.

I'm not totally sure when but I think some time in the 2010s the 2006 update became retroactive so my character was allowed to play. Didn't have to do too many side quests - the main one was retrieving father's birth certificate.

My character also had to attend the endgame ceremony and swear allegiance to the queen, which seemed odd for someone born in the country and lived here all his life

I think an Italian version of this game could be very interesting.

It's not "quite expensive" if you compare it to the Australian passport which is 2x as expensive and so notoriously badly bound, holders joke Australian Border Protection forces test for forgeries by checking if the blue cover curls: if not, it's a fake.

I seem to recall playing a version of this game as a text adventure. Douglas Adams was involved? But not Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Great read, best laugh of the day!

This is one of many reasons why America's birthright citizenship is an incredible optimization: most people can prove they are American with a single document, a birth certificate.

Classic!

>written in arcane language, in various texts called "acts of parliament".

>British passports are issued to those who have a claim to British nationality under the British Nationality Act 1981.

Has the British language really evolved that much in the last 50 years?

Just fantastic. Bravo.

This is so infuriating. Props to the author for sublimating it into a coding challenge.

I have noticed in Japan the crazy bureaucratization of document applications in the 7-8 years I've been living here. I've had 2 Japanese documents expire, "MyNumber" and "Driving License" in these years, and when trying to re-obtain them the process has become MUCH more complex. I'm bad at remembering all these processes in detail, but these are from memory:

- For the mynumber, first time, it was a simple application, and maybe a trip or two to the City Hall. This was at a moment where Japan was trying everyone to have/use the mynumber system so that might've made it easier on purpose.

- The second time I needed to book an appointment to request the application forms, which were (snail)mailed to me so then I could apply for the card. Yes, that sentence is as bad as it reads.

Now the crazier one is the driving license (conversion process):

- The first time I needed to get a translation, I went to JAL, showed my documents and paid, then received the translation. Took that and 2-3 documents, went to the driving license center, and gave the documents and passports and IDs. Waited few hours and had it done. Oh, I also got the Motorbike license for free.

- The second time I am applying now: need to get the translation, first register online for the translation, for which you need to create an account and a 8-step process. Hard, but still doable [1]. Then you need to book a meeting for the driving license center. But it's very hard to do so, in fact I couldn't find the link at all. I went in person and they showed me a QR code for the booking, I suspect this is hard to find on purpose. Every place is full and cannot be booked, except for 1 of them, 2 months later. Okay, I try to apply. First basic questions, sure, then asks for travel history on my passport that I need to input manually. Note that dates in one part of the form are on the shape of `YYYYMMDD` and in other they are 3 fields of "YYYY", "MM", "DD" (3 different inputs), having to write a dozen of them is maddening. Oh wait, but if I want the motorbike one, which was automatic before, I now need a document from the Spanish embassy as well, another side quest. I'm hoping they can at least provide it in Japanese. I guess I'm halfway that process now, got a meeting booked 2 months later.

[1] https://english.jaf.or.jp/driving-in-japan/drive-in-japan/ab...

This reminds me of an article read about how DSL was used to automate/encode Dutch tax code.

I can’t recall the article I read but this is a good presentation.

https://tomassetti.me/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2018-04-10-...

The sarcasm here is off the charts.

My First Reaction: Given that the game can be read as a deconstruction of the concept of Nation States and Citizenship, why would the UK government run such a thing?

After a few minutes: Oh wait a minute...

Haskell itself is an amazing language once it "clicks". But all the tooling around Haskell is just really bad.

UK is easy mode.

Try France, or maybe Germany.