UK passports and no exit border checks: child abduction all too easy?

[SouthLondonDaddy]

Being recently questioned at Gatwick because our daughter looked nothing like her passport photo, taken when she was just a few weeks old (www.mumsnet.com/Talk/general_advice_tips/3019919-Child-unrecognisable-from-passport-photo?watched=1 ) got me thinking that British passports and the lack of border checks when leaving the UK potentially make child abduction all too easy, especially compared to what happens in many other countries.

A 5-year passport for infants is too long a period; in many other countries it’s 2 or 3. I joked with my wife that I could basically snatch any child the same age as our daughter and travel abroad with her on our daughter’s passport.

One parent can obtain a passport without the other parent’s knowledge or consent; this is just wrong – it makes it all too easy for one parent to take a child abroad without the other parent’s consent. Again, many other countries require the consent of both parents. Clearly this doesn’t solve the issue of what happens when two parents initially agree to the passport, then become estranged and one tries to take a child abroad without the other parent’s consent.

There are no passport controls when leaving the country. This is very different from many other countries (eg all the Schengen area, ie most of the EU), where immigration officers check passports both when entering and leaving the country. If I tried to take a child from London to Paris, it would be up to the airline to stop me. If I tried to take a child from Paris to London, I’d have to go through French immigration control.

British passports do not report the names of the parents. Simply having the same surname does not prove anything, just like not having it doesn’t mean much (think of all the mothers who don’t change their surname). We always carry a copy of our daughter’s birth certificate, but, to be fair, that piece of paper with no pictures is all too easy to fake! Why don’t British passports report the names of the parents? This is what happens in many other countries. Printing two more lines on a passport, like many other countries do, is a very easy and inexpensive solution. And of course faking a passport is much harder than faking a birth certificate. There was a petition to do this ( petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/55636 ) but it failed.

Thoughts?

^grandOlejukeofYork Fri 01-Sep-17 12:41:32
Yeah, you've got quite a glaring omission in your point, OP. There are no border checks in mainland Europe. You can drive out of Spain with a Spanish child or out of Italy with an Italian child, so who needs your booklets and bits of paper?^

You are forgetting a few important details:

I am no expert but I'd imagine that getting a child back from another EU country, and arresting/extraditing the adult who abducted him, is probably easier than for non-EU countries. Just think of the European arrest warrant.

Plus, as Melassa and BertieBotts pointed out, in most of Europe you are supposed to carry ID with you, and you can be arrested if you can't prove you are authorised to travel with a minor.

Agreed Bertie. A parent who is likely to abduct their child will have shown signs of wanting to do so. In general the RP will have the birth certificate, although that's not to say that the NRP couldn't apply for a copy. But there will still be signs. An older child would tell you if dad/mum had taken them to get their photos done for instance. And plenty of parents are upfront about it and tell the RP they'll be taking the child and there's 'nothing you can do about it'.

It's very unlikely to just come out of the blue.

^Nonibaloni Fri 01-Sep-17 12:18:27
Are you supposed to take a child's birth certificate?^
We now do. It doesn't cost anything and it's no pain to carry an additional piece of paper next to the passport. Nothing to lose.

I agree with the Op.
My dd are dual citizens. To get there national ID cards and Passports, both parents have to sign , both parents have to agree who can take the child out of the country - one / or both / or both together. We leave A schengen country , we are checked, we arrival in the Uk and use Uk passports we are checked.
We are not checked when we leave , but are achecked when we arrive in schengen country.
Nothing was requested or asked about when applying forBritish passports.
There are measures for single parents as well to get documents for the children.

My children have dual nationality for a country that has very strict passport rules. The screening and checks for their other passports required both our signatures and we needed to lodge official and notorised documents with the police to state whether the children were permitted to travel with one or both of us and also state the names of other people they can travel with, such as my inlaws. I applied for their British passports on my own. As DH is not British they neither required his passport number nor his signature. I usually travel alone with them and I have never been questioned or asked about their father. I could, if I wanted to, just take them back to the UK alone and there would be very little DH could do about it immediately and I'm not really sure there's much he could do about it long term either, but luckily for him they have the other nationality which gives both of us more rights. The other passport can be updated with new information before it expires. It wouldn't stop me travelling internally by coach or train but it would stop me leaving the country with the children. I entered and left the UK recently, they even entered and left with expired UK passports. They had no way of knowing if I was abducting the children, as I was leaving the UK and even the EU with a one way tickets.

You seem to be spending a lot of energy getting worked up about something which is really unlikely to ever affect you whereas the people it could affect (e.g. those of us with absent co parents potentially with hostile intent) are telling you that we're happy with the way it currently works and/or would be happier with a little less red tape in fact.

I appreciate the other side of the coin, and I can imagine how requiring both parents to consent can lend itself to abuse (e.g. I refuse just to mess with you...). However, in some countries both partners can mess with each other, so to speak. In Italy, for example, any parent of a minor requires the consent of the other parent in order to get a passport (his adult passport) or an ID card valid to travel abroad. So, if you don't want to let me take DD to Eurodisney just to mess with me, I won't let you go to Tenerife with your new partner... Unless you want to drive there :)

Also, of course I appreciate that implementing exit border checks would be very expensive, but printing the parents' name on children's passports would be very easy, useful and inexpensive - I cannot possibly think of a single downside.

^Harree Fri 01-Sep-17 12:35:01
Although children's passports last 5 years, you are supposed to change the photo if it doesn't look like the child any longer (renewal approx £50)
I just did this recently for my 2yo as he looked nothing like his 8mo photo. ^

It makes sense, but is contradicted by the fact that children passport last 5 years, even if issued when the baby is just 1 month old. Could I in theory be fined because DD looks nothing like her 2-week photo?

My point @Grandoleduke was that applying for a passport doesn't automatically mean you will be given one as you seemed to be inferring in your post.
That's all.

The question was can one parent only apply for a passport, and my answer was yes, they can.
What your answer had to do with that is anyones guess.

We were all checked, our passports, at least 3 times, at Gatwick, last month.

I wasn't threatened with any sort of fine, just told that photo has to look like the child & it invalidates the passport if it doesn't.
Her passport was due to be renewed anyway so I just did it straight away for that reason. With my son, at 8mo he had big round head & not much dark hair. At 2yo he has a big mop of blond hair & less of a round face. I renewed based on the fact I couldn't be bothered with any kind of hassle as he does look quite different.
Some kids have a very strong look throughout where this might be irrelevant & they could get away with the full 5 years I guess.

I have 4 DC, and at one point, quite a few years ago, between them, me and DH, we had 3 different surnames. Not once were we stopped and questioned. Roll onto present day, me and my DC have 2 different surnames between us and DH has died, still, I have never been stopped and questioned. Agreed OP

^Oblomov17 Fri 01-Sep-17 16:24:07
We were all checked, our passports, at least 3 times, at Gatwick, last month.^

To be clear, by Border Agency officials, rathern than by airline staff or by the staff at metal detectors?

Over the last 10 years I must have flown at least 7-8 times a year out of the UK, and only once was I stopped by a Border Agency official, at Heathrow around 2008. It was a random check, not a structured one; like I said, UK airports are not even equipped to run passport checks on all travellers, the way it happens to travellers flying out of the Schengen area.

DH and I travelled separately this summer, dividing the kids. We were not stopped at the airport.

I think with Advanced Passenger Information, passport scanning at the check-in kiosk, again at bag-drop, again at security, and finally at the gate, they had plenty of time to check us.

It is pretty sad to think that any parent travelling alone with their own child is an abduction risk.

@BizzyFizzy, again, plenty of opportunities to cross check your names against those of convicts, suspects, etc, but not to check if you have parental responsibility for the children travelling with you!

Yes, it is sad that parents are an abduction risk, but I'd suspect it's mostly parents who abduct children - I don't think it's particularly feasible for a stranger to snatch a child, come up with a fake passport on the spot, and take the child abroad...

@Linolueum, @Rosa, in summary, it seems people tend to agree with the system they are most familiar with: Brits prefer the British system, non-Brits prefer their own...

@mangomay, I genuinely don't know to what extent it comes out of the blue or not. On one hand it seems plausible that it doesn't come out of the blue, on the other hand a big risk are holidays abroad - holidays the other parent would probably not have consented to if he/she had suspected something.

I genuinely do not understand why parents' names are not printed on children's passports. It's so easy, effective and inexpensive.

Perhaps, but it probably wouldn't solve your perceived problem of child abduction which in 99% of cases is by one of the parents taking the child to their home country. That person as a parent would be listed on the child's passport - giving even MORE credibility to a Mum/Dad whisking their children off without the other parent's agreement. Also there would be an outcry from children who have no father listed in their birth ceritificate - would you really want to carry a passport saying father "unknown" or "blank"?

I do agree that we should be keeping a great note of who is entering and who is leaving.

I am assuming someone in the Home Office has done some work on all of this and has the figures - the number of children on UK passports who are abducted each year by a parent in the circumstances described versus the cost of putting in an extra layer of checking at each and every UK port or airport which would be huge. It's all very well saying it's such a huge problem but is it really?

@PoppyPopcorn, if the father is unknown it will be shown on the birth certificate, which is always a good idea to carry (not technically compulsory, but it doesn't hurt), so not much of a difference. The difference is that passports are way harder to fake than a birth certificate.

I really have no clue what you are complaining about. Why would anyone check if you have parental responsibility for the children you are travelling with? You don't need to have!

I can go on a plane with my own children, my step children, my neices, my friends children. It breaks no laws. If they have their passports and I have mine, that is all we need. I do not need written permission, I do not need any forms or paperwork. I need their parents consent, that is all.
Why would border officials check every single child every single day? Do you know how long that would take? Nobody would ever get on their planes!

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/06/mp-stopped-at-border-over-daughters-name-urges-passports-reform

"MP stopped at border over daughter's name urges passport reform.
Tulip Siddiq, who kept her maiden name after marriage, says children’s passports should feature both parents’ names"

She is ethnically Asian; her child looks like her (white) husband. She kept her maiden name.

I do wonder if bringing the birth certificate would have been enough, or if she would have been quizzed anyway because she doesn't look like her child. Printing parents' names on children's passports seems safer (harder to fake, so hopefully less questioning), easy and inexpensive.