hungryhorace

Hi Dean,

Requesting every page (including blank pages) in colour, is unreasonable IMO.

icecreamqueen

DEAN,
Lot of room for improvement without compromise on the Passport Agencies part.
I still do not have my new British Passport and i returned a blue passport - issued in New York, making me start from square one. This is not considered a renewal since they dont have these records? However i do not understand why my parents paperwork is required when i am a Naturalized Certified British Citizen?
The website status is the same since i applied and every time i ask for update they want another document. Why not ask for all documents up front? The check list on the Passport application Website is worthless.

The only thing they have done well is return my American Passport quickly when i insisted that i have them send it back ASAP. Also the National Archives folks were very efficient to get me a certified copy of my British Citizen Naturalization. Perhaps the Passport agency can learn a few things here.

hungryhorace

I think the moral of this story is to ignore the draconian request to send in other passports. The UK government has no right to ask for such information, and the passport is not your property to submit to another nation (especially on such timid reasons).

Steve_

I agree with Horace, this is unreasonable and I want to know what the statutory basis is for it, I can't find it.

I have to say I also think it is entirely pointless, because I've never really understood this British fetish with passports. Going by what I see on British travel shows, I often see this comment "oh well the [insert nationality] don't travel as much as we do because they have less passports per capita".

No - they don't need a passport to travel abroad. Huge numbers of countries have bilateral or multilateral agreements obviating the need for a passport, not the least of which is the Schengen Area. Nor do they need them for ID purposes as they can get an ID card (e.g. a State ID card in the US).

So you can't figure out their movements from what is in their passport - because there are no stamps in it.

What is the purpose for example of having a British/French dual citizen send in all the pages of their French passport? Let's just assume for a moment they're going to an ISIS training camp in Syria - yes, I'm sure ISIS is stamping their passports at the Syrian border!

This is causing a lot of passport applicants a lot of hassle for no real benefit.

Steve_

Ah but do they. This is the question I want answered. I can't find any statutory basis for it and I've looked quite hard.

IRJ

One has to suspect that the reason why they want to see ALL passports and all pages is really because they want to see where people have been visiting... Think IS etc. But they do not want to advertise their intentions so they make it a requirement for everyone.

hungryhorace

Wonder what the actual value of this is? Like most 'anti terrorist' actions, this one just impacts on innocent people. Those who have two passports and have taken visits to Turkey probably won't be submitting their secondary passport me thinks.

Once again, another major overreaction by the UK gvt which completes the near erosion of any civil liberties for British citizens. The idiot May is now intent on removing British citizenship from those they 'suspect' have gone to fight for ISIS; that would be the same ISIS that Willy Hague was busy sending aid to 6 months ago btw.

You just couldn't make this level of incompetence up. They can't even stop a Londonder executing an American journalist. Despite all those erosions and invasions of our civil liberties. Joke.

Steve_

It's obviously stupid because you can avoid it by the simple expedient of not renewing your British passport! Is any terrorist going to be stupid enough to voluntarily implicate themselves?

Given that your passport is technically the property of the Govt., I also think it violates the sovereignty of foreign countries, and it is especially galling in the case of allied countries.

I want to know what the legal basis is for demanding this information. And it had better be good because I'm going to be having a chat with my MP about it.

hungryhorace

+1

No wonder so many Brits are able to go abroad and commit extreme violence (thanks to dipshit Hague's funding of ISIS). You really have to question the competency of our security services. They're too busy prosecuting people reading the anarchists handbook (read it last night thanks First Amendment, it's of no use whatsoever as so much material is outdated), rather than any concerned or intelligent effort to stop people being radicalised.

NB: Witness the idiocy of the MPS stating that viewing Foley's execution video was a criminal offence. You just couldn't make it up. UK = police state.

IRJ

Remember Hillsborough......
Then just the other day the Police decide to investigate the possibility of Sir Richard's involvement in a 40+ year old child abuse case. So they get a search warrant and there next action is not to carry out the search..it's to call the BBC and ask them to get their cameras there first so they can appear on TV.....
I mean whatever happened to basic commonsense and integrity of Authority?

hungryhorace

I could name on a detailed list all current Chief Constables currently under investigation of criminal offences (The Times' crime correspondent writes in detail about this), plus GMP Chief Constable currently facing criminal investigation refusing to remove himself until investigation complete:
Exclusive: Calls for Greater Manchester Police chief to be suspended as inquiries into ‘botched’ rape cases begin - Crime - UK - The Independent

The Government doesn't help by giving the police insane levels of power to grossly invade the civil liberties of citizens. At least the US has some form of written document for Judge's to say 'No, that's unconstitutional', but British Judge's have no such power.

Steve_

There's the Human Rights Act 1998, but it doesn't give the courts the power to overturn law, it just gives them the power to say the law is incompatible with the ECHR and Parliament should change it.

Honestly I think the only tie I actually have with the UK is a British passport and even THAT is being used to give me aggravation. I am never living there again, that's for sure.

Steve_

So apparently it's a "long standing requirement" to send in your other passports which they ditched and then went to only collecting the photo page and then a few weeks ago they decided they wanted all the pages.

None of which answered my actual question as to what the legal basis of it is or how this doesn't infringe on foreign sovereignty. I genuinely cannot find the SI that authorizes this collection, what is it?

hungryhorace

Does the British government ever bother with legal cover? Look at how they rushed through #DRIP to provide legal cover once their illegal fibre tapping in Middle Eastern countries was revealed.

The UK is too busy looking to remove passports from their citizens anyway. The place is a police state in all but name.

Hotscot

Sorry if I missed something back a ways...at which point does the UK govt know you have another passport?