Australian Dual Citizens Entering UK after February

[Bugs]

I honestly don’t think they could. Maybe if you’ve ever had a National Insurance number or UK Driving Licence then your details will be in the gov.uk system, because you would have needed to prove residency rights to get those.

Having just done a National Insurance query via phone to UK, where the guy at Pensions said het we can do the form over the phone due to me being legally blind. At the end of the call he said I will get ….weekly from May this year. I wasn’t going to claim until after my trip on Feb 16th to LHR. Changed from March 5th.
Guess I’ll see what happens at Perth

 

[Flyingwombat]

I honestly don’t think they could. Maybe as a long shot if you’ve ever had a National Insurance number or a UK Driving Licence? Your details might then be in a gov.uk system because you would‘ve needed to prove your citizenship or residency rights to get those. Still, I’d be astounded if they were able to match it all up with the level of certainty required to deny your ETA.

I'm all good as I have a British passport as well... I did have an NI number which I only used for my Saturday job from age 15-18 and then I worked one year in UK after Uni age 21 before escaping to Europe and then onto Australia... I also had a UK licence from age 17. I just wonder how any of this data could ever be matched up. Government IT is usually woeful.

I wouldn't risk it as my elderly parents are in UK which is why I've always kept my other passport. As COVID taught us sometimes you do need keep citizenships if you need to get into a country fast.

Although I still remain disappointed that Australian citizenship didn't count for much - I actually got stuck in UK for a short time and then in NSW before Tasmania would let me get home... but I digress!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I'm all good as I have a British passport as well... I did have an NI number which I only used for my Saturday job from age 15-18 and then I worked one year in UK after Uni age 21 before escaping to Europe and then onto Australia... I also had a UK licence from age 17. I just wonder how any of this data could ever be matched up. Government IT is usually woeful.

I wouldn't risk it as my elderly parents are in UK which is why I've always kept my other passport. As COVID taught us sometimes you do need keep citizenships if you need to get into a country fast.

Although I still remain disappointed that Australian citizenship didn't count for much - I actually got stuck in UK for a short time and then in NSW before Tasmania would let me get home... but I digress!

You don’t need to be a UK citizen to have an NI number or driver licence. So I doubt those are going to carry much weight if UK border force was trying to get someone to admit they were a citizen!

 

[Zero]

I honestly don’t think they could. Maybe as a long shot if you’ve ever had a National Insurance number or a UK Driving Licence? Your details might then be in a gov.uk system because you would‘ve needed to prove your citizenship or residency rights to get those. Still, I’d be astounded if they were able to match it all up with the level of certainty required to deny your ETA.

Well, there's no entitlement to an ETA. I don't think they would go to these lengths, but if they really wanted to stop unknowing citizens from using ETAs, they could theoretically deny an ETA on the suspicion that you may be a citizen, and ask you to apply for a full visa where your citizenship or lack of it would be confirmed.

If you've been issued a British passport since 1994 and just haven't bothered to renew it, the details of your previous passports should be easily accessible to the ETA system, if they wanted to program that in. So if you started living in the UK as a citizen in the past 30 years they wouldn't need to obtain records from other government agencies.

If you were living in the UK on a visa in a foreign passport then DWP and DVLA/DVA records would only have the foreign passport, if they've even kept those details. I got an NI number on my Aus passport before I became a British citizen, although the DVLA knows I'm a citizen because I had them retrieve the photo from my British passport to print on my last DL.