Passport Technology Isn't Error Free
By Allan Holmes | Monday, October 01, 2007 | 05:01 PM
By Allan Holmes | Monday, October 01, 2007 | 05:01 PM
The following item was posted by Judi Hasson, a freelance journalist who writes about technology and lives in Washington, D.C.
It’s hard to know how safe we really are or if the federal government knows what it is doing when it comes to managing our security. Just last week, I had an example of a big snafu that turned up in my own mailbox.
My 18-year-old daughter applied for a passport, and it came without delay. (The State Department says it worked through its passport backlog during the summer.)
The passport looked good at first. All the information was correct, I thought. But the picture, well, um, the picture was not my daughter. It was a picture of a young woman with long, curly hair who looked nothing like my daughter. Well, my daughter does have long, curly hair, but that was about the only similarity.
A State Department official said that it is likely the correct picture of my daughter was scanned into the department's database, and it was human error that caused the wrong image to be printed on the passport. But if that's not the case, and given that many government databases are now linked to check identities, is it possible that more government databases have the wrong picture of my daughter? And who’s got my daughter’s picture on her passport?
It took several hours of phone calls to get to the right people at the local U.S. Post Office to help me. When I did, they told me I had to start the passport process over. I had to send them the official pink form for corrections and two new pictures. Later, I was told to forget the pink form and just bring in the document with the wrong picture to the passport office on 19th Street in Washington, D.C. Oh, and of course, the $97 passport fee would be waived, but not the cost of the new pictures.
The State Department official said the agency issued 18 million passports in fiscal 2006, and errors are very rare. “Frankly, we are human,” the official said. “The error rate is very low. The important thing in issuing a passport is that it has great security information.”
It was only a month ago that the State Department got some bad press when it was disclosed that the department printed the wrong birth date on a passport. Instead of 1972, the date was printed as 1872, according to the official.
As for my daughter's passport, the official said the State Department cannot tell if there has been a one-to-one swap. In other words, my daughter’s picture may be floating around on someone else’s passport, and there may be a domino effect of passports having wrong pictures. “The errors happen. We minimize them. We have a series of quality control measures. The thing we can do is fix them as fast as we can,” the official said.
But where is my daughter’s picture? And who is that friendly young woman staring out from my daughter’s new passport?
Comments
My passport arrivedwith the wrong picture about 2 weeks after it was sent from the post office. I called the information hot line and was told to simply send a letter of explination, 2 new photos, and the incorrect passport. I did exactly as instructed the next day and 10 days later a replacement arrived with all the correct data. My concern is, what's to prevent someone form applying for a passport and then returning it with photos of a different person. Wouldn't it then be possible for the person in the new picture to use it for entry into foreign counties or entry into the US? This seems like a real security issue. No cerification that the piscture is in fact the person the passport was issured to. I also included receipts for return postage and the new photos but don't really expect to see any reimbersment for these costs.
Dick | Thursday, February 28, 2008 | 09:27 PMWe applied for my 17 year old daughter's passport in March 2007. We received the pasport approximately 16 weeks later but to date have not received the original birth certificate that was required to apply for said passport. My concern is that should that passport fall into the wrong hands....her identify is stolen and her credit possibly destroyed before she even has a chance to begin an adult life. Even my local Congresswoman's office said we were one of many and quoted again how the State Department had to deal with an overwhelming amount of requests for passports. We are still waiting for the birth certificate!!
Trish | Tuesday, October 09, 2007 | 03:53 PMThe real concern here is that the woman whose picture showed up on your daughter's passport used a stolen version of your daughter's identity to apply for a passport. The binding of identity information to the right person at the time of issuing the passport is a serious issue that is frequently overlooked.
John E | Thursday, October 04, 2007 | 09:34 AMNothing is perfect, period. But blaming "Federal Government" for a mistake from one individual who makes up a very small part of the "Federal Government" workforce is a bit ludicrous.
Nothing short of surprising however, considering the "media" aspect of your journalism career.
Have a perfect day!
When I renewed by passport way back in 1985, my birth year was printed as 942. I did not have time to send it back to be corrected. When I got to England, the man who examined my passport looked at the birth date and then at me and said. "You are very well preserved for your age."
JoAnn | Tuesday, October 02, 2007 | 08:02 AMABOUT THIS BLOG
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