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issues
This page considers questions of privacy, security and
identity in relation to passports.
It covers -
introduction
Passports, visas and similar travel documents involve
three overlapping questions –
- provenance,
sometimes characterised as its 'authenticity'
- certitude
- is it borne by the person whose information features
in the document
- context,
what other information available or needed for interpretation
of the document
Ultimately
any passport - likely other identity documents - is only
as good as the checking, whether at the time of issue,
time of presentation (eg while crossing a border) or otherwise
(eg during a detailed forensic examination once authenticity
has been called into question).
Its value for governments and other bodies involves perceptions
of risk. It also involves tradeoffs. The impact of tradeoffs
between free movement and security for example potentially
include undue delays, administrative costs, erosion of
privacy and reinforcement of ethnic or other stereotypes.
provenance
Questions of provenance centre on the
document's authenticity, including differentiation between
the legitimacy of the physical format - paper, ink, cardboard
and gold foil - and the status of information embodied
in that document.
Was it issued by a government agency? Is it a forgery
that has the same appearance and other characteristics
of an official document?
More subtly, is the physical entity legitimate but the
content illicit. Some criminals have recognised, for example,
that there is no need to manufacture a passport from scratch
when they can use a stolen 'blank' or simply buy a passport
with the details of their choice from a corrupt official.
Estimates of the scale of fraud - and extent of its detection
- are contentious. However, in 2003 the government of
Papua New Guinea announced the theft of that nation's
passport database (along with computer backups and blank
passports), with the French government revealing in 2004
that some 10,000 blank French passports, 5,000 blank French
driver's licenses, 10,000 blank car ownership certificates
and 1,000 international driver's licenses without any
identification numbers had disappeared. In 2008 the UK
Identity & Passport Service announced theft of 3,000
blank passports, along with the van carrying them.
Questions of provenance also encompass recognition of
the government that issued the document and more broadly
acceptance that the document has an official status.
As we noted on the preceding page of this note, while
all animals in the international community are ostensibly
equal, some of less equal than others. Particular states
have chosen not to recognise the existence of some others
(notably non-recognition of Israel and therefore its passports)
next page (traveller
surveillance)
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