SECURITY FEARS OVER 3,500 PASSPORTS 'LOST' IN THE POST

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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PERSONAL details of thousands of Britons have been put at risk after their passports were lost or stolen in the post, it emerged yesterday.

Hundreds of passports have gone missing every year despite the Government’s switch to a secure courier service in 2004 instead of using Royal Mail to deliver the documents.

The official figures, which revealed that 3,500 passports had disappeared in the last five years, were described as “alarming” and sparked security fears over identity theft.

Dylan Sharpe, director of the privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: “The Government is incapable of treating our personal data with the respect it deserves.

“It clearly makes no difference if the system is called ‘secure’ or not – in Whitehall if something can be lost, chances are it will be.

“How can they expect us to hand over our biometric data for ID cards when they can’t even run the current passport service?”
The Identity and Passport Service is responsible for sending out new passports.

Each costs £77.50 and contains details including surname, first name, date and place of birth, digital photograph and signature. In eight months last year, more than 300 passports were lost or stolen, while 654 went missing between February 2008 and January 2009.

In 2004, the Passport Service began using Secure Mail Services to cut down the number of passports lost in the post but secure delivery, which requires a signature, is only used in high-risk postcodes.

Conservative peer Lord Marlesford, who revealed the missing passports in a written question in the House of Lords, said: “Passports are so crucial that they should be signed for by the recipient in all cases.


“You have a situation where some passports are signed for depending on which postcode you live in and others not.
“You could easily have a foolproof system. The whole thing needs sharpening up.”

Tory MP Damian Green, the Shadow Immigration Minister, added: “This is an alarming and astonishingly high number of lost passports. It shows how dangerous it would be to rely on the Government to hand out identity cards.”

Replying to the written question, Home Office minister Lord West said: “The indications are that the fall in the rate of loss is continuing.”

[steviemac]

a customer handed a passport to me that was mis delivered by SMS which i promptly delivered correctly and spent 10 mins trying to convince the addressee we do not handle the contract , just doing you a favour ..... did n't believe a word i said.