Interview required for new UK passport applications
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The scheme whereby first time applicants for a UK passport will have to attend an interview started this week. Initially the passport office will notify applicants if they have to attend an interview. Once the scheme is fully operational the interview will be complusory for all first time applicants. There are around 600,000 new passport applications per annum, around half of which are from young people aged 16 - 19.
Photo by Kai Hendry
I’d be interested to hear what the interview is like if you’ve had to attend. Do you think that this interviews are too intrusive or are they are necessary security measure? If you live outside the UK, do first time applicants have to attend an interview in your country?
[tags]United Kingdom, UK passport, British passport,[/tags]
May 4th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I’d say that interviews for first-time applicants for British passports living overseas will be pretty rare. After all, how would they have gotten overseas in the first place without their passport? Under 18s (or is it under 16s) don’t need an interview as far as I know and they’d make up the vast majority of first time overseas applicants.
One thing is sure: if/when anyone from overseas needs an interview, they’ll be looking at a serious bill. We have shelved plans to get our son born in France a British passport as it would have cost hundreds of euros by the time you count the obligatory trip to Paris, the EUR 80 each for witnessing our signatures and the registration.
It will almost always be more economic to fly to the UK to get the passport. At present, even without the interview, it’s two to three times the cost of getting the passport in the UK.
My understanding is that it’s something of a nonsense security-wise as they’re by and large asking you questions to which they don’t know the answers. Things like where you went to school etc.
No interview is required for Irish passports and even the fees for applying for them overseas are pretty much the same as in Ireland (the only addition is EUR 6 or so for registered delivery to return your birth certificates). I’m told by various guests that it’s now a total nightmare to get an American passport which presumably is reducing the number of Americans travelling abroad somewhat.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
You need to change or remove the “Technorati Tags” line in your posts as it takes people right away from your blog. Bad move.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Arnold, I was advised to add the simple tags to the blog posts as it is supposed to be great way to increase visitors to the blog!
May 4th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I’m not sure that the passport interviews will close all security loopholes, it will mainly be an irritation to the law abiding majority, At least the passport office is setting up video conferencing for applicants who live in remore areas, more than a one hour journey from an interview office.
I didn’t realise it would be so expensive to obtain a UK passport for your son Arnold.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
There are “tags” and there are “categories”. What you’ve done is to add Technorati tags: click on one and it takes you away from your own site. If you add category tags as I do, clicking on those take you to posts with the same tags within your own blog.
Yeah, it’s really big money to get a British passport when you don’t live in the UK. The passport itself is around twice the cost for no good reason. The basic problem is that they won’t let you just post your application to a UK passport office with an extra couple of pounds for the postage: they insist on it going through the embassy in your country of residence ie the extra charge is for an additional layer of unnecessary admin.
But it’s when you’re registering a birth abroad that you’re talking really big money. They charge EUR 40 per parent just to witness the signing of the consent form for the registration vs free if it’s done in the UK (you MUST use a consular official to do it abroad, in the UK you can get just about anyone to do it).
Naturally, they can’t witness it if they don’t see it, so that in turn means a trip to Paris which, for us, is a two night hotel stay at minimum (ie add another EUR 100 or so, plus EUR 50 petrol plus EUR 100 tolls).
Then there’s the registration process which itself costs money and, of course, it’s more money than it would do if you did the same thing in the UK.
I think maybe I should be writing this on the Travel Rants website :)
May 4th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Oh, and, despite us living considerably closer to Barcelona which has a consulate, no, we can’t apply for the passport there ‘cos we don’t live in Spain.
I can actually understand them requiring you to run the passport application through the embassy if you’re living in some weird African country or similar where the postal system isn’t too secure, but are they saying that the French postal system can’t cope with a registered letter to somewhere in the UK?