NO2ID

I have just received a new biometric passport which I am not happy with as it says 'If your passport or chip in it gets damaged, it may prevent you from travelling and you may need to get a replacement passport' - I find this very worrying as I now have to rely on a chip and if by accident, it gets wiped, it takes away my rights of free passage. I would very much like to change my passport for an old style one although I realise that the cut off date is 31st May. Is it possible to change a brand new passport?

Which opens massive opportunities for the Passport Service to infuriate people before it even gets round to interrogating them about who they are. Most people will have no way of knowing their chip isn't working till they try to get on a plane.

Hmm. In which case, presumably they will have to have some system where a damaged passport can still be used - i.e. the 'old way' by someone looking at the mugshot at making some kind of check that the passport is legit.

Making the whole purpose of the biometric passport slightly useles.

Yeah, that sounds about right for the incompetence of this government.


But their corruption is just as bad: So just slip 'em £50 for the party funds and they'll look the other way and pretend they didn't see anything. Make it £100 and they'll throw in an MBE as well.

Exactly. Which of course will be how the "gold standard" of biometric security will be broken in everyday use. There will be work arounds for malfunctions. Malfunctions are annoying for customers and the ordinary delays of checks are annoying for staff, so one can expect widespread override, to the joy of fraudsters.