Choose a side: Vinted v disabled users

People are meant to declare if they wear glasses or use contacts when driving and have this recorded on their licences ffs! £1000 fine if you don’t bother to let DVLA know!

No they aren't 🙄

Has anyone who is saying the NDN should obtain a provisional licence bothered to check the application process?

We already know NDN is a) disabled and thus unable to drive and b) does not hold a valid passport.

😂

Apply for your first provisional driving licence
Before you start
You’ll need:

• an identity document, such as your passport

Before you startWe will now ask you a few questions about your eligibility for a first provisional driving licence and then confirm your identity.
You'll need to provide:

• your email and password if you have a Driver and vehicles account
• your identity document number. You can use a:
• UK passport (a passport that expired within the last 12 months can be used for this service)
• non UK passport
• biometric residence permit
• biometric residence card
• national identity card
• your National Insurance number if you know it
• you may also have to provide addresses where you've lived over the last 3 years

So quite apart from the fact that the NDN cannot legally drive due to her disability, in order to make a falsified application for a provisional licence to circumvent the need for purchasing a more expensive passport, she first needs… a passport!!

😂

Oh, sorry I didn’t realise ; my friend has epilepsy and is unable to drive but she has maintained and renews her provisional license as it’s a useful form of ID despite being unable to learn to drive. I assumed it was as easy as just applying but maybe she has had to provide her medical information and has been approved regardless.

You have to declare any disability or health condition which may prevent you from driving, and a medical examination is often required before a licence will be issued. If you’re not legally permitted to drive, you can’t obtain a provisional licence.

That’s a good point, I didn’t think of that. OP is your friend able to drive? She doesn’t actually need to drive ofc, I just mean will her disability impact her from getting a provisional?

As I replied to PP - I posted earlier about the acceptable forms of ID for online payment providers and the more stringent KYC checks needed.
You can't have it both ways. Either you want a streamlined automated process, skipping the checks that high street banks and other, erm more 'bureaucratic' institutions do. That makes the platform cheap and easy to use.
This needs various forms of ID that can easily and securely be authenticated + less vulnerable to fraud.

Or you have an entire process and the appropriate slowness + costs. Or, the government allows online only payment providers access to many more sources of data than just the passport/driver license databases. Which they refuse to do.

@ExasperatedDancer this is going to become more of a problem now that more things are digital and I don't see any way other than national/some other form of ID. Alternatively, a fee waiver for passports.

I'm an immigrant myself, but I don't understand why the UK government offers visa fee waivers for people who aren't even citizens. But won't give its OWN citizens fee waivers for passports if they can't obtain a driving license.

Even my supposedly shite 'developing' country has free national ID with the appropriate security.

Understandably, the thinki8ing used to be , if you can afford to travel, you can afford a passport but its use has gone beyond that in 2024.

Also remember when it comes to verifying ID not everyone can obtain either a driving licence or a passport.

Obviously blind people cannot apply for a licence, but did you also realise that people on bail with restrictions not to leave the country are (again, for obvious reasons!) not able to apply for a passport.

So yes, our societal set-up which requires photo ID to access services is ridiculous when we have no national system of ID and people do not have an enduring, automatic right to obtain either of the only two acceptable forms of photo ID the country offers.

Not if she is unable to drive due to disability.

If that payment provider operates in the UK they have to comply with UK law, and make sure that disabled people have access to their services. So if a disabled person has to pay more than a non disabled person to provide a means of ID that in itself is discrimination.

Surely she can apply for a provisional in order to get the money back?

Try JVS on 3 Counties Radio - he is brilliant!

Also @ExasperatedDancer and @Rosscameasdoody it's a similar story for the 'challenger banks' like Monzo which are app-only. They are more vulnerable to fraud, especially identity theft, and so HAVE to use documents in a standard format that can be verified cryptographically/matched against a database.

You are correct about high street banks and despite the reams of complaints about how their processes etc are this is the reason. Unlike digital only platforms they have to allow equal access to their services and account for almost every case.

You talk about UK laws, I posted information from the FCA upthread (not that I expect you to scroll through) about the more stringent identity verification procedures that online only companies have to go through.

If the company operates in this country it has to comply with UK laws.

Banks ask for photo ID, but, although they don’t advertise this, they know that if someone cannot obtain either a driving licence or a passport due to disability they must ensure those people can still access their services.

So they will often accept a birth certificate in conjunction with a recent letter from HMRC or other official Government department etc.

To say that sight impaired people must only supply ID which costs 3x the price of ID available to non sight impaired people IS discriminatory.

Just making a suggestion… 🤷‍♀️

Disability discrimination involves not only the presence of unfavourable treatment, but the ability to make reasonable adjustments - and the failure to do so, which constitutes discriminatory treatment.

In this case, as an international payment provider with stringent KYC regulations and automated checking, they have to use documents which can be verified to a certain standard.
Every single document, across all the countries, meet this standard.

If they cannot legally relax these regulations then you cannot build a case for discrimination.

The case should really be against the UK government for not having cheaper passports or free national ID, unlike other countries.

But being disabled is. The finance company has a responsibility to make sure its’ policies are not discriminatory, and in this case they very well may be. A driving licence is cheaper than a passport but if a disabled person cannot obtain a provisional licence /cannot drive because of their condition they would be forced to pay for a passport solely for the purposes of withdrawing money. I would say that’s in breach of the equality act and that either vinted or mangopay need to change their policy to obtain suitable ID on registration of a user account and not on payment of funds legally belonging to the seller.

However disability is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act which states that those with protected characteristics must not be subject to harsher terms than those without in obtaining access to services.

Requiring a disabled person to obtain ID which costs £90 in comparison to someone without the protected characteristic who can obtain acceptable ID for £34 possibly does breach those terms of the EA.

Additionally to apply for a first passport as an adult the applicant must have their identity verified by someone in one of the following occupations:

You must work in (or be retired from) a ‘recognised profession’. For example:

• accountant
• airline pilot
• articled clerk of a limited company
• assurance agent of recognised company
• bank or building society official
• barrister
• chairman or director of a limited company
• chiropodist
• commissioner for oaths
• councillor, for example local or county
• civil servant (permanent)
• dentist
• director, manager or personnel officer of a VAT-registered company
• engineer with professional qualifications
• financial services intermediary, for example a stockbroker or insurance broker
• fire service official
• funeral director
• insurance agent (full time) of a recognised company
• journalist
• Justice of the Peace
• legal secretary (fellow or associate member of the Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs)
• licensee of a public house
• local government officer
• manager or personnel officer of a limited company
• member, associate or fellow of a professional body
• Member of Parliament
• Merchant Navy officer
• minister of a recognised religion (including Christian Science)
• nurse (RGN or RMN)
• officer of the armed services
• optician
• paralegal (certified paralegal, qualified paralegal or associate member of the Institute of Paralegals)
• person with honours, for example an OBE or MBE
• pharmacist
• photographer (professional)
• police officer
• Post Office official
• president or secretary of a recognised organisation
• Salvation Army officer
• social worker
• solicitor
• surveyor
• teacher or lecturer
• trade union officer
• travel agent (qualified)
• valuer or auctioneer (fellow or associate members of the incorporated society)
• Warrant Officers and Chief Petty Officers

Doctors are no longer allowed to confirm ID for a passport unless they know the applicant personally, in a capacity outside of the doctor-patient relationship.

Not everyone moves in the social circles that enables them to become friends with solicitors, surveyors, JPs, MP or Salvation Army officers… 🙄

Financial discrimination is not a thing though. Being poor is not a protected characteristic.

If the OP’s NDN is sight impaired she cannot under any circumstances apply for a provisional licence.

Driving licences are not available to blind people for a very good reason!

If the NDN did have a visual disability and failed to declare that when applying for a provisional licence she would be committing an offence. People are meant to declare if they wear glasses or use contacts when driving and have this recorded on their licences ffs! £1000 fine if you don’t bother to let DVLA know!

So if the OP’s NDN cannot obtain a driving licence, either full or provisional, the ONLY option left that Vinted will accept is a passport.

This puts a financial discrimination in place for certain disabled people that other members of the population do not suffer.

I’d be really, really surprised if that was legal.

@blackcherryconserve she can use the free VoterID that we could apply for online, like I did.

How?
The entire passport process is done online. You can get assistance in applying from various charities. But if someone is capable of listing and selling items on Vinted they're presumably capable of applying for a passport online.
Poverty isn't a protected characteristic under the equality act and furthermore, anybody selling anything incurs a cost of doing business. Claiming 'I can't afford it' is not a valid justification.

OP's friend can get a passport. She doesn't want to. But she's chosen to sell through Vinted.

Your accountants are a local (or have local subsidiaries) business with humans verifying you + dealing on a long-term basis. They have different requirements to an international, anonymous digital platform.

Not if she has a postal vote she won’t. I would refer mangopay to the equality act 2010. It may be more difficult for disabled people to access the ID they are requesting, so their policy itself may be discriminatory.

This will work but needing ID is vital especially for so many online services these days.
Might as well get it, and it lasts 10 years