23 March 2007
New passport applicants will have to attend a compulsory interview to prove their identity before one is issued, the government has announced.
The applications are to be checked against personal information already on government databases. The Identity and Passport Service said the face-to-face interviews would be introduced from May in some 69 centres across the UK. The scheme will deal with 600,000 applications a year.
The announcement came in the wake of Home Office admissions that an estimated 10,000 passports were issued to fraudulent applicants in the 12 months up to September 2006.
Home Office minister Joan Ryan said: 'It appears that the level of attempted fraud is increasing and getting more sophisticated.' She added that the IPS had now identified 16,500 fraudulent applications, of which 10,000 went undetected at the time.
James Hall, the chief executive of the IPS, said that 95% of the population would be within an hour's travel to a centre from either home or workplace.
He said the questions would be drawn from a stock of 200 based on the 'social footprint' of applicants.
PFmar2007
