NO2ID

Hi there,

I have to apply for my first adult passport tomorrow. It's come at very short notice because I have just found out I have won a trip to South America at the beginning of November, so I need to begin the application process yesterday!

One thing that concerns me though (and the reason i haven't acquired a passport up to now) is whether my application will automatically add my details to the NIR? If so, is there any way of opting out?

Finally, as there is no longer a fast track system for first time adult passports, I would be really grateful if somebody with recent experience could give me some idea of how long their application took from date of postage to receipt of passport.

Thanks so much in advance for your replies!

You won't be added to the NIR - it doesn't exist yet.

if and when the NIR exists you will not be able to opt out as the passport is a designated document: you will be able to opt out of having card. This makes clear the mistruth perpetrated by Brown last week that the ID card scheme isn't mandatory.

Can't comment on the timing - but now is not the busiest time of the year.

One question that concerns me about all this is this:

Even though the NIR hasn't been built, is there not a risk that anyone applying for a new passport or renewing their existing one, will still be asked to provide a large quanitty of personal data (the same questions that will be asked when the NIR IS built) and that that data will be added to the register at a later date - ie., when it is built?

In other words, they'll still demand the data but will keep it on file only to add it to the database at a later date? If this is the case, there is no way to avoid having one's data added to the NIR.

That is possible.

IDCA 2006 s2(4)


However, the quality of such data relative to the purpose might be quite poor.