All you need to know about passport

Facts

Passports are another essential official document one citizen is required to have. Issued only by an internationally recognized government of your area. Usually, a Foreign Affairs, Home Office or State Department is the typical government agency tasked to design, develop and deploy an official document which their citizens can use to ID themselves when applying for visas or entering another country. Passports despite looking different in terms of design they do all share a basic internationally ratified format. Even the numbering and codes and security features are usually adopted by all countries. This will make it easier to understand whatever is written, and be able to spot fakes. Citizens when they apply for a passport they need to prove they are citizens of the said country by birth or acquired citizenship. Several documents are required to be issued a passport. Your passport is not just registered in your country but also in another international database shared only among governments.

The idea of the passport is a customary convention of international law, although the issuance of it will be statutorily by the relevant laws of the issuing country. For the average person in real life, the passport can indeed act as an identity document. The main reason is that a passport is clearly issued by a national authority, and therefore will be taken in practical terms as a reliable way of identification. But that's not the prime purpose of the passport, which is still a travel document. In some countries that have national/regional identity cards/documents, those items will have fixed identity serial numbers, and all state services and benefits are filtered according to that identity number. The passport fails in this respect because it has to be renewed every 5 or 10 years and the passport number changes every time.

What Is a Passport?

A passport is a travel document issued by a country’s government to its citizens that verifies the identity and nationality of the holder for the purpose of international travel. Passports are small booklets that typically contain the bearer’s name, place of birth, date of birth, the date of issue, date of expiry, passport number, photo, and signature. There are several types of passports depending on the status of the bearer in their home country.

History of passport

The first is difficult to determine but there is a mention in the Book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament of a dignitary of Persia who needed to cross Judea, and the king Artaxerxes issued a “passport” for him. Middle Age passports, from French “passe porte” were required to be allowed to cross the doors (porte) of a city. Later Henry V of England is said to have created a document for English subjects to be able to prove who they were when abroad but I can’t say if these documents were “recorded”.

What Is an Official Passport?

An official passport, or service passport, is a type of passport that is issued to government employees. Its purpose is to let officials in the destination country know that the bearer is entering the country on official business, representing their country in an official capacity. Holders of official passports are not typically granted any special privileges.

What Is a Diplomatic Passport?

A diplomatic passport is granted to diplomats who are traveling for official business and representing their home country abroad. Diplomats are appointed by the government to conduct official business abroad and maintain political, economic and social relations with other countries. Their passports typically grant them certain privileges and immunities, such as exemption from prosecution and taxes in the host country.

What Is an Emergency Passport?

An emergency passport, or temporary passport, is issued when you’ve lost your passport or had it stolen and you don’t have time to apply for a new one. For example, if you left your passport on the plane by accident and therefore cannot board your connecting flight, you may call your embassy and be issued an emergency one-way passport that will get you home.

What Is a Collective Passport?

A collective passport may be issued to a group, such as schoolchildren, traveling abroad together. However, children are typically encouraged to travel on their own passports.

What Is a Family Passport?

Family passports are issued to one member of the family but may be used for all family members for traveling purposes. However, the official passport bearer must be traveling as well. Family passports are quite rare these days.

What Is an ePassport?

An e-passport or electronic passport is also known as anA biometric passport, is a regular passport booklet that contains an electronic chip in the cover. This chip contains the passport bearer’s information and provides an extra layer of security against passport fraud.