Unsettled, or how I got my Settled status in the UK as an EU citizen (and you can too)

On 27 January I received confirmation of my settled status as an EU 🇪🇺 citizen living in the UK 🇬🇧. Until 29 March 2019 that means pretty much nothing, but after that date, when the UK is set to leave the EU, it’s supposed to prove I’ve lived here long enough so I can still work an pay taxes and assures me I’m not going to be kicked out (by the government agents at least, oddly it doesn’t give any assurances regarding violent mobs of angry Brexiteers roaming the streets of London), unless something drastically changes.
Here are some of my thoughts and experience on the current state of the whole procedure, and the notorious app they make you use to prove your identity.

Note: I’m a EU citizen living in the UK and this blogpost is primarily meant for the other 3 million of you (XOXO). In addition, it might help other Europeans interested parties, including journalists, trying to make sense of all this.
Also assume that I am not a legal expert and this whole article is merely my interpretation of the process and the rules. Never trust what you read on the Internet and yadda yadda.

Fantastic settled statuses and how to find them

If you are an EU citizen living in the UK at least until the Brexit date you should be eligible for either a pre-settled or a settled status.
This is a brand new shiny status that is going to replace the “permanent residence” status, currently in place (and the only way to eventually obtain British citizenship as an EU citizen). Currently you can also apply for settled status if you are a spouse of an EU citizen living in the UK.

The settled verification scheme is currently open in a sort of public beta phase until it finally reopens on 30 March 2019. This beta opened on Monday 21 January, and that’s when I put in my application. It’s in fact the third trial run of the verification service, after the first two had only been open in a small geographical area and for some NHS staff.

You can get awarded either a settled or a pre-settled status — depending on whether or not you’ve lived in the UK for at least 5 years. If you haven’t, you will get pre-settled status that will eventually turn into a settled status.

The process, step by step

Requirements

It starts with an Android app that takes some details from you, takes your photo, and scans your passport. Besides a compatible Android device it requires you to have a biometric passport (also known as e-passport). To my knowledge most new passports in the EU are issued as biometric, and let you enter the country through the automated gates. Wikipedia has a nice explanation, read more about it here.

Nerd stuff about the passport scanning

The passport scanning part is done through technology called NFC, that the app uses to read the data from your passport to confirm its validity and authenticity. The e-passport gates use that same technology, and so do both Google Pay and Apple Pay systems on your phones.

Why only Android though? The reason is that Android operating system allows app developers to access the NFC scanner on the device and use it to read data — from the passport.
While most iOS devices also have hardware required for reading NFC tags, Apple doesn’t allow for it to be used for anything other than Apple Pay, and some basic NFC reading, that is incompatible with the format used in e-passports, so making an app that reads a passport is impossible. (For now).

TL;DR; Don’t hate the developers, or even the Home Office (for a change), hate Apple instead.

Now, for the actual process

The instructions are all available on Home Office’s site. This is my personal recap of them.

Get an Android phone. If you already have one, it’ll likely work just fine. You can also borrow it from a friend or family — I lent mine to both my wife and my friend who are iPhone users.

Install the app from Google Play Store. It’s conveniently called EU Exit: ID Document Check.

Note: You might need to be in the UK for it to work but I haven’t checked.

Follow the instructions on the screen, and give it the info it asks for. The app asks you to take take several pictures, including one of your passport, a trippy one that scans your face by blasting it with different colours, and of course a selfie. Something something biometrics.
The selfie will be the photo attached to your file on the settled status, so make sure to look all gloomy and pissed off. I’m Slavic, and I find that part really easy.

Finally it’ll ask you to put your phone on your passport so it can do the NFC magic — it should only take a couple of seconds, and then you should be able to submit your ID.

You’re done with the app, and can continue this process either on the phone or on a computer in the web browser.

Check your email. There should be one arriving asking you to confirm your email address, and once you do that, follow the link in it that lets you finish your application.
The link in my confirmation email was pointing to this: apply-for-eu-settled-status.homeoffice.gov.uk, and at the time of me writing this it’s taking a while to load. At the bottom of the page there’s a link where you continue your application.

You put in the details of the document you used to confirm your identity (your passport, most likely), and then asks you a few more questions.

Have you National Insurance Number on hand, as that should give them enough data about your employment (and tax payment) history to prove the length of your stay in the UK — to my knowledge this just influences whether you get awarded settled or pre-settled status.

After your insurance number you just need to clarify a few more things, namely regarding whether or not you were at any point arrested or convicted for heinous crimes (not something the folks at the Home Office like, apparently), or attempted to blow something up — either successfully or unsuccessfully (that’s the thing they really don’t like). 🦹‍♂️💣

You will also need to come up with a few answers to security questions, just in case you lose your email and need to log back into the system, and lastly review your whole application and submit it to inspection.

At this point it asks you for the notorious £65 fee that Theresa May announced will be scrapped. Fun fact, they also take Amex, and that means you get free points. 💳

Once you’ve submitted and paid for it there will be a few more emails coming in for you — a payment receipt, a submission confirmation, and one coming from noreply@apply-for-eu-settled-status.homeoffice.gov.uk that is your certificate of application, and confirms your application number.

Note: The above document is NOT a confirmation of your settled status. It just reiterates your existing rights, and tells you your application case number.

Now, all you need to do is wait to get confirmed (hopefully).

Waiting (on a sunny day… 🎶)

How long you’re going to wait depends on things. What these are I don’t know, but I presume they have to contact the border control systems, the HMRC for tax reasons, and law enforcement in both Britain, your country of origin, and possibly also international law enforcement orgs, the Avengers and/or Justice League 🦸‍♂️.

Once you submit they send you an email linking you to a page that is supposed to show estimated processing times for the settled application. Right now, almost 2 weeks after reopening the scheme it says that the expected processing times will start do be published here shortly. 🤷‍♂️

As I went through my application process less than 2 hours from when it reopened I had to wait from until the coming Sunday to receive my confirmation. My wife and friend, both Slovenians, who used my phone to verify their identities only took a day to receive their confirmations, and I’ve seen on Twitter that some people received their confirmations in as little as one hour!

After a yet-unspecified while, you’ll receive another email coming from a noreply, with Your EU Settllement Application in the subject line. That’s the confirmation. It has a PDF confirming your status attached — either settled or pre-settled status, and hopefully not anything else!

🍾

This is all you’ll get. For us EU citizens there are no identity cards or physical residence permit documents planned, like there are for people on visas. There’s supposedly an online lookup system in place that anyone can use to check your settled status and that will surely never go down as computer systems are known to be flawless every time. (At least 60% of the time. Trust me, I’m an engineer.)

If in any case the computer system fails on your application, or your status isn’t granted after 70 days, and you haven’t committed any heinous crimes or blown up things that you shouldn’t have, then I believe reaching out to the good people at The Guardian might be in your interest, as they tend to write about such cases.

Parting thoughts

One final thing I need is to get a refund from the Home Office for the £65 fee paid when submitting my application. I don’t know whether there’s a timeline in place for this, but I presume they’ll announce and publish it in time. There will certainly be some increased pressure for the refunds coming from all sides of the liberal metropolitan elite.

And that’s it — the whole settlement process in brief, based on my first hand experience. Hopefully I’ve clarified some uncertainty, and I sincerely hope the system works well for you, should you decide to apply for the settled status. God save the Queen indeed.