Ex-data Clerk Can’t Explain How Kim’s Picture Got in System
Won Hong Kim
Back to the senate inquiry… earlier we shared with you Erwin Robinson’s recollection of the day “Won Hong Kim” purportedly visited the Immigration Department to take his passport picture. But as we all know, he was never actually here and a different photograph of Kim wound up in the passport, one with a shadow over half of his face and looking different from a normal photograph. How? As Robinson himself testified, he does not know how a different photograph or scan could be added to the system after the original photograph had been taken and stored in the system. All he could suggest was that someone above him made the switch or manipulated the system.
Mark Lizarraga, Senator, Business Community
“Was it possible for you to take a picture of a picture, or was it possible for you to scan a picture into the system?”
Erwin Robinson
Erwin Robinson, Former Data Entry Clerk, Immigration Department
“Into our system…no, sir. As far as I know, I have never seen it done.”
Mark Lizarraga
“As far as the data capture operator?”
Erwin Robinson
“In all my years I have never seen it done. I remember we had times with people with beards – because the system is designed with biometric capture – we had people with too much beards; we had to get them to shave their beards or the camera wouldn’t accept their picture.”
Mark Lizarraga
“So in all cases when you were capturing data, you had to have a live person in front of you and you had a live person in front of you that day – a Chinese person in a coat?”
Erwin Robinson
“Yes, sir.”
Eamon Courtenay, P.U.P. Senator
“So the live picture of the person you took, you went to stage two?”
Erwin Robinson
“Yes, sir, I went through all the stages; I went all the way through.”
Eamon Courtenay
“You went through all the stages; so it is according to your testimony, it was impossible to change the picture.”
Erwin Robinson
“To my knowledge – it is a computer – but to my knowledge, from the way we know the system because we don’t have administrative – we are not administrators so when we login in, it’s direct to the system – we can’t do anything else on our computer; internet, nothing. But if an administrator could put in the administrator code, then they could use it as a normal computer.”
Aldo Salazar, Chair, Senate Special Select Committee
“You have already testified that you took the picture of somebody.”
Erwin Robinson
“What they showed me I took on the system that day – yes, sir.”
Aldo Salazar
“The one that you took of Won Hong Kim – if it was of somebody who came in that day; if it was of somebody, a man who came in pretending to be Won Hong Kim, shouldn’t it have looked like all the rest?”
Erwin Robinson
“Yes, sir.”
Eamon Courtenay
“So how do you explain this?”
Erwin Robinson
“Sir, I cannot. I cannot explain it; it has been a strange occurring for me also.”
