To be utterly, utterly appalled by Nimbus/Access card registration?

[JelliedFish]

Personal information about my child’s disability is sensitive. I’ve already shared documents/proof with DLA.

In order to register for an Access card, I need to share details again. Photographic copies of doctors letters etc are requested.

Surely the government DLA/Carers allowance letter is sufficient proof already?

Then we come to the +1. This is very ambiguously worded, but it seems that different venues have different criteria as to what counts as a ‘+1’. Meaning that some venues acknowledge you as a carer, and others don’t. Therefore some give you free entry as a carer, and others don’t offer this as they have specific wording to ‘wriggle out’ of acknowledging your role as a carer.

But my biggest problem is that they try and persuade you to pay £15 to register with them!

So surely, they are making a business out of people with disabilities?? Why do you need to ‘prove’ your disability again for their business?

This just seems so wrong to me!!

Yes, there are sometimes discounts available to carers, like reduced entry fees, but that's just like discounts for any group eg police. The venue has decided its a good thing to do.

This has nothing to do with the free tickets for carers under the Equality Act, as a way of making their venue access to disabled people.

I can get a carer ticket for free to take my daughter to a concert. If I take her to her aqua zumba class or gym, I am there to support her and I'm not allowed to actually take part.

But a local college offers free classes to carers, completely nothing to do with the disabled person. It's just for me.

People get really confused between the two.

Unless I’m mossing it, they also don’t seem to publish their criteria for each of the categories of adjustments and/or any statistics on their decisions (as a government department would have to). The non-transparency of the whole process, from their storage of data, to their criteria to their decision making is very concerning. This type if thing should really be a government run process if we are going to have anything like this, or it needs to be regulated and transparent, not in the hands of unregulated private companies. And disabled people should incur even more costs than they already do, due to needing it to access legally mandated reasonable adjustments.

No they don’t publish any info about the criteria or about these processes.

It is a shame lots of places are now off our radar, as we would have gone there and enjoyed and spent money. I’m looking at you, Knowsley Safari Park and ATG venues.

We use ATG a lot. You do need an access card but once it's set up it works quite smoothly https://www.atgtickets.com/access/access-scheme/?gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21761704680&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIluaKurThjQMVvZtQBh0AxjvIEAAYASAAEgKvBPD_BwE

ATG are one of the best ime. They offer a discount disabled AND free carer seat if you qualify.

That works smoothly if I’m happy to send a massive amount of a young vulnerable person’s sensitive data (plus the “small fee” of £15) off to an unknown entity in Derbyshire to an unknown bunch of people who are not qualified as OTs or in any medical sense, who may or may not be happy to produce a card saying we can have a free carer. Fuck knows how securely they hold this data. Fuck knows if they sell it or anything else.

I am not prepared to do this. ATG can shove their accessibility policies & tickets where the sun doesn’t shine as this is not an accessible and inclusive practice.

I mean instead of ranting and giving it ‘fuck knows’ you could always find out.

That's quite the conspiracy theory. We have data rules in this country and big fines when they are breached.

My daughter is an adult. She uses the card. She hasn't had any negative impact from giving out her data. And my husband works in data.

It’s not a conspiracy theory at all. Data nowadays is sold right left and centre. Data is leaked right, left and centre. There are laws but these are often breached. Every time I use a browser my data is sold and cross referenced.

It is possible that your NHS GP data is winging its way to China to be used in a massive study.

Who should I ask?

When the card first came out it annoyed me as ds has so much proof of his needs that it was just another thing/ hopp we had to jump through needlessly. Now I'm a bit more appreciative of it, I just wish they were a bit stricter with criteria etc.

Everywhere has become so much busier and more and more people are using accomodations which is great but I do think that there is a proportion who play the system especially in theme parks and concerts and see the adjustments as either a free ticket or free fast pass which takes away from those who genuinely need it.

I used it yesterday to book tickets with axs and the lady on the phone took the number and could see all the different symbols on my son's card- this is the first time this has happened, which I was quite impressed with.

I guess it's easier to just register with one system than having to register separately with atg, axs, Merlin....

Surely you would ask Nimbus?

So what? I'm sorry but the cat is well and truly out of the bag on data. A1 is scouring social media for our posts. The UK has so many cctv cameras....signing up for a nimbus card is neither here nor there imo. They are no worse or better than other large data holders like Boots Advantage Card.

Look if you are happy to send your vulnerable minor’s ECHP, detailed diagnosis documents, & other private medical documents off to some faceless organisation, then more power to you. Go for it. I don’t.

I didn't. My daughter is 27. She wants the card so she gets a free carer card for her boyfriend.

Are you talking about Nimbus or a different company? To get DCs ride access pass I just sent Nimbus a copy of the DLA award letter, no detailed medical documents or EHCP. Just the same DLA letter I used to show to the Legoland person on the day at the park under the previous system. It has name, address and level of DLA award on, nothing more personal than that.

I wouldn't want people not to apply because they think you have to send loads of personal info, that wasn't my experience of Nimbus at all.

@NotAnotherCodeBlueAt3Am for ATG you don’t have to pay for an access card, you can use the free version that just covers ATG.

Same for Knowsley Safari Park, instead of paying for an access card, you can apply for the free version that only covers there.

Same for merlin, can get a free RAP just for their parks or a £15 access card which covers lots if attractions

I never had to do any of this.

The data protection is an issue though. Whenever I’m sent info regarding my son, it comes through through an egress system which is extremely secure.
Yet for Nimbus I’m expected to send this info to a company I don’t really don’t know much about.

An app I use was hacked and had a data leak recently - luckily I’d given out minimal info.
For Nimbus, they know quite a lot of detail about my son’s condition.
Also, the venue I visited were very reluctant to add the +1. This isn’t an issue at other venues that don’t use Nimbus.
I think a venue could potentially ‘twist’ the criteria to suit them - trying to portray that they are accessible to people with disabilities, but to make the +1 difficult to achieve - so it doesn’t affect their profits.

The venue I visited was also making the queue pass difficult to access. They’d put a limit on the number of wristbands available, had to find a little office at the back to get one, you had to prove everything again, and there was a ‘need to email first’ which wasn’t clear. Although the queue pass was already ticked on the access card!

The thing is, we won't get the carer pass without proof and there has to be some system. Not everyone wants to carry their pip or dla letter around with them and produce it at the gate - that has security implications too. The nimbus card was introduced partly to get round this - you give your info once and then you just show the card, which has none of the confidential info on it.

My daughter has autism. She used to refuse to show a pip letter because she didn't want friends to know she got pip. The nimbus card is less "outing". For us it is worth it.

For data storage, I needed to update one for symbols due to changing circumstances. I was told to provide the originals again, as they only store for 3 weeks.

Took the kids somewhere at the weekend that needed dla letter for carers and it absolutely poured it down with rain. Everything in my bag was soaked and the letters are now papier mache. Would much prefer if there was a universe card for that, whether Access, or government issued.

Sorry to hear this -can you not just have a pic on your phone going forward?

I found it to be an extremely straightforward process. I’m not sure what the issue could be