The issue is, is that the 3822 has been accepted as de facto ID on stations plus generations of cadets believing it to be who then became regulars who accepted it. Perception has trumped reality & effectively made it a lawful form of ID.
Throw in the fact that many under 16s do not have an recognised official ID (some may have a shotgun certificate but they’re the exception) and there’s no real way for cadets to get onto station.
If the people on the gate don’t accept the change then there will be a lot frustration on all sides. Frustrating practices is the biggest problem for any volunteer organisation & the one that can cause the biggest reputational damage.
I think it’s good idea to move to the app but if we forget we are dealing with children & don’t manage the change very careful it could fatally damage all further future digital projects (& we will probably be then forced tri-service).
Prior Planning, if going to a station there should either be a notification to the station to confirm the escort / unescorted requirements. My SC holding was shared with my parent station and green passes issued while I was a CI, quite handy given I was there to pick up vehicles + Weapons or Ammo.
Activity ICs need to account for acting as an escort for those without a Valid MOD 90 etc. especially given the current timelines on issue.
Going back to the article, Under 18s do not need Photo ID to be issued an escorted pass.
I’m not applying it to all cadets, and I’m not suggesting that your lad was at fault (and, just as a matter of point, I have ASD as well).
But, bold statement or not, over the past 20 years I have seen an awful lot of ‘3822 through the wash’ incidents that could have been avoided if the cadet in question had taken the 3822 out of their pocket at the end of the night; or ‘it got ruined on exercise’ issues - we used to wrap ours in a plastic freezer bag before going out on ex to protect it.
Whilst of course there will be individual cases of genuine accidental damage, as I said previously, they don’t seem to be treated with the same care. That’s based on evidence drawn from 27 years of experience in the Corps.
Yes, the VSDT have conducted a pretty thorough survey.
I don’t believe that anyone is making that assumption. Ben can give you the details but the VSDT have repeatedly explained that, whilst not all cadets will be able to use the App, a good majority will and that there are alternatives for those who can’t.
Despite what they may claim the RAFP are not the arbitrators of what is valid ID or not - that rests higher up the food chain & within the MOD.
Now here’s an interesting one. Android phones are especially vulnerable to being hacked & loaded with spy ware that can then attack other cyber weak points. There’s some very
If I was a hostile state, then it would be quite straight forward to identify the phone of a 13 year old air cadet, get it loaded up with spyware and then when on a sensitive site jump onto another cyber vulnerable access point & go from there.
The moment the App becomes cyber vulnerable & cadets are identified as a cyber risk factor the app will be removed to protect the wider MOD. A business continuity needs to be put in for in case the app fails or we have the equivalent of the post office horizon system failures.
More than a few of our more senior (therefore those with more things in their books) cadets have been very disappointed. But then we pointed out they’d be keeping theirs…
New cadets don’t know what they’re missing, definitely. And I’ve found in recent years cadets prefer to keep their brassard (though I’m 99.9% certain this wasn’t an option for me, it had to go back in the pile to be reused).
I would argue that this is because it means so much less to the Corps than it did.
In my day it was flashed like a passport at any event when arriving. No book = no activity.
For the past 10+ years the TG21s have taken over that role reducing the F3822 to simply a book to record data in…ie record of service book and not something to cherish and proudly keep in good condition anymore
Do you not think that since the APP has been developed by a specialist RAF team responsible for designing apps for use across the RAF in significantly more sensitive environments, that may have been taken into account? This wasn’t knocked up in 5 minutes in someone’s bedroom.
Surely this is a thing even with a paper 3822…it’s fairly easy to identify a cadet and there are probably many more vulnerable apps on their phones anyway - which they’d still have with them on site.
They are on the Bader Hub, you can access it through the IBN. Short version Ofcom say that 91% of Cadet aged people have smart phones and internal research says for Cadets it’s 98%, based on what I’ve seen at Squadrons I’d have to agree with that.
Well since they are moving to a MOD90 app I would hope that this had all been considered.
Can people please read the IBN and Bader message from @Ben_Wakefield, associated comments from other CFAVs and his replies to them before coming on here with ill informed views and spouting rubbish?
When inducting Cadets, I usually tell them they’re not really “in” till their 3822’s been thro the wash at least once… will the same thing apply to their phone?!
I like the fact that Cadets have more “proper” ID than ID on a RAF base than I do, as they’re uniformed and I’m just their Padre - this really cheers some up
