UK citizenship applicants offered earpieces to cheat test

Instructors at teaching centres for would-be British citizens are offering applicants earpieces to cheat the Life in the UK citizenship test, according to reports.

The Life in the UK test is a mandatory part of the citizenship process, covering subjects from the fundamental principles of British life to the technicalities of the TV licence.

Around 80% of candidates pass the threshold of at least 18 correct answers on the 24-question test, which can be taken in written or audio format, according to the applicant’s preference.

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A BBC researcher posing as a citizenship applicant at a training academy in east London was offered a two-way earpiece in order to cheat on the test.

Instructor Masoud Abul Raza was recorded telling the undercover reporter that “everything would be arranged” to feed them the correct answers.

“You have to spend nearly £2,000. This is the business, it's completely hidden. But you are getting a result,” he said.

The researcher later took the test using the earpiece, which was connected via bluetooth to a mobile phone used to pass on the answers. He received a pass certificate, a crucial step towards obtaining a British passport.

Despite being caught on camera, Abul Raza denied cheating and insisted he only organises legitimate training.

Another east London instructor told the reporter that he had also arranged cheating at test centres in Birmingham and Manchester, claiming: “No-one ever gets caught.”

The footage, which will air on BBC One’s Inside Out programme tonight at 7.30pm, alleges that some EU nationals are “paying criminals to cheat the Life in the UK test, as anxiety grows over citizenship rights post-Brexit”.

One woman who admitted cheating on the exam says she was motivated by panic that she could be expelled from the UK after Brexit.

Similar cases have been reported since at least 2008, when two men were jailed for using hidden cameras and earpieces to help applicants cheat a citizenship exam in Wimbledon, in what The Daily Telegraph described as “a scam akin to a scene in a James Bond movie”.

In 2014, “migrants were found to be driving hundreds of miles to a specific test centre”, says the Daily Mail. “An official report found staff there ‘were colluding with applicants in committing fraud’.”

The Home Office, which outsources the administration of the tests to 36 centres across the UK, said it took cheating “extremely seriously”.