Georgia Bowen Says No One Could Change Kim File in BPIS

Georgia Bowen

Current systems administrator at the Immigration Department, Georgia Bowen, worked at the Information Technology section of the Department during the time of the Won Hong Kim case. It has been established through prior testimony at the Senate Committee that a ‘picture of a picture’ can be taken and introduced into the system. But how can this explain what happened with the picture of Won Hong Kim which was introduced into the system, and the claim by Erwin Robinson that he personally took the impersonator ‘Kim’s’ picture on the day he claimed the man came there? Bowen told the Committee that only one entry exists for Kim on the Department’s servers, and it is the one with the copied picture involved.

Georgia Bowen, Systems Administrator, Immigration Department

“When you look at that picture in the system, you can clearly see that is not a live person sitting there, it’s actually a picture of a picture.”

Eamon Courtenay, P.U.P. Senator

“Okay, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: if someone came in front of him and he took that picture, does the system allow for the picture of the picture to be somehow inserted and it comes out?”

Georgia Bowen

“Not at all. With the system, once you take that biometric picture and fingerprint, once that application is closed, like data entry completed, nobody can go back in the system and changed the biometrics. Even if it was saved at created, it is difficult for the person to go back and take a picture. Sometimes it does not save, so they actually have to do a new entry within the system to capture that person. They will have a double entry so one has to be denied and one has to be taken to approval.”

Elena Smith, Senator, Trade Unions and Civil Society

“Is it possible that what you just said, the scenario just now, that maybe two images were in the system: maybe one of a person, the actual picture of the person, and then the picture of the picture, and then one…the picture of the actual person was denied and the other one accepted?”

Georgia Bowen

“If it was it would be available in the system for us to see.”

Elena Smith

“So you would have seen that in the system?”

Georgia Bowen

“Correct, and there is only one entry for ‘Citizen Kim’ in the system.”

Elena Smith

“And the one that you saw is the one with the photo, the picture of the picture?”

Georgia Bowen

“Right.”

The senate hearings continue next week Wednesday.