Reg: Home Office unveils new UK passportQuote:
The Home Office has said that new UK passports with 'strengthened security features' will be issued from October.
To make the passports more secure, the chip which stores the holder's details has been moved to the inside of the passport cover so it will no longer be visible, the Home Office said.
Quote:
The new passport will replace the current UK ePassport, which was upgraded in 2006 with the addition of an electronic chip to hold the owner's details.
De La Rue will take over the contract for passport production in October 2010 when the current contract expires. The value of the 10 year contract is £400m.
10 years = approx 60m passports
=> cost per passport = 400m/60m approx
=> cost of physical passport book = £6.67 (£8.00 if only 50m passports)
Did I miss something? This is about half the cost as mentioned in the NAO report on 'introduction of epassports', HC 152 2006-2007, see pie charts in fig.4 on p.10 showing the Oct 2006 price increase of the book from 5.00 to 12.25 and the addition of 5.88 for interviews.
Of course I could be mis-reading, or assuming an excessively high demand for passports. Or something.
Argh. And not logged in. And feeling too lazy for copy-and-paste after all that arduous research
