Passport application: why does the Home Office need to see foreign passports?

[SouthLondonDaddy]

Is it a big brother control thing? Do they want to monitor British citizens who are citizens of potentially, how shall I put it, “difficult” countries?

What I don’t understand is that they don’t ask if you are a citizen of another country, but require you to send any foreign passport you may hold. This makes the rule easy to game: destroy the passport of country X, tell country X you lost it, it becomes void, and you don’t have to send it to the Home Office. Then, once you get your new British passport, apply to country X for another shiny new passport… This also means the Home Office won’t see any visa stamps you may have had on that foreign passport – if that’s what they were interested in.

By contrast, if you have nothing to hide, and are not up to any dodgy etc, I’m not sure what the Home Office gains by looking at your foreign passport – yet you can’t travel till they return it, it’s a just headache if it gets lost, etc.

SouthLondonDaddy, I posted this message yesterday but for some reason it was not uploaded. To elaborate, this is what was entered in the page that is reserved for official observations of my sons British passport "The Holder Has a 'country x' Passport, Number......... Issued on........ In the Name of....... This Passport is Due to Expire on..........."

Also, SouthLondonDaddy I have not filed a complaint to Her Majesty's Passport Office as I thought that this was normal. Strangely enough, my other childrens British passports do not have the same comments enterd. Nothing is entered in the Observation page. I would appreciate any Legal advice on this matter.

@SouthLondonDaddy
I mean they ghost the chip in the e-passports so they can track your travel in real time. I don’t know why you think that tracking your travel requires the chip to store where you’ve been. Technology has long since gone past that.

None of what I have said is nonsense. A valid and current passport is the preferred form of id internationally to prove citizenship. Without a passport, it’s really hard to prove you are a citizen of a country, especially if you were not born there.

And it’s not that a dual National has to provide more proof of identity than a single national, its that a dual national has more identities than a single national. You are simply providing the same proof of identity for each citizenship you hold. It’s like complaining that a person with two degrees is having to submit twice as much proof as a person with one degree on a job application.

Deliberately “losing” a foreign passport so you can apply for a British passport without explicitly lying is still practicing a deception. You may think that this is a way to hide additional nationalities from the Home Office but it’s a deliberate illusion. They know your other citizenships. You are just giving them a reason to put you on a monitoring list.

DoctorAllcome, it is kind of like two passports in one. How strange! So if an immigration officer lets say in a certain country feels suspicious about my son and asks him to see the other passport is he required to show it to him? And does that mean that he always needs to carry with him the two passports?

Don't you think DoctorAllcome this is a rather rediculous situation to be in everytime my son considers travelling. And if he should run into trouble which embassy should he call the British Embassy or the Embassy of country x.

No country should have the right to make reference to another country's passport details/information in their passport. By being a dual national you are 100% a national of both countries. Not 50% a national of country A and 50% a national of country B. So, if I am trvelling on a British passport I am 100% British with no ifs and/or buts.

@jmahmoud, I am no expert so I cannot give you any legal advice. Are you willing to share what the other country is? All I can say is that, if I were you, I would complain, and I would specifically ask why they entered those details, since every other dual national does not seem to have that. The complaint might have a bit more strength if you can elaborate on some specific inconveniences, eg you visit a country which does not have good relationships with your other country, and even just showing that note in a hotel is something you might want to avoid, eg you might not want to brag about an Israeli passport in Saudi Arabia or viceversa.

@DoctorAllcome, a lot of what you have said is nonsense.

You seem to not appreciate that you can be a citizen of a country even if you don't hold a passport. Your confusion may derive from the totally idiotic British system, in which in theory a passport isn't compulsory, but in practice it is (see Windrush). In many other countries, citizenship gets recorded at birth, or on other, often compulsory and cheaper, documents, like an identity card (you do realise that a country with compulsory id cards CANNOT have something like the Windrush scandal in which citizens are illegally deported, right?)

Eg if a dual British German citizen gets arrested in Germany, the UK won't be able to provide consular assistance. Whether this person ever had a German passport and whether this was in any way recorded by the British authorities is utterly, completely and totally irrelevant. There are many ways the German authorities could know that person is German: birth records, identity card, other records, etc. Can you please explain what is the relevance of, and what changes if, the Home Office knows of the German passport?

As for ghosting the chips, I have no idea what you are talking about. Not saying you are wrong - just saying I am clueless. Can you please elaborate?

A dual national with a current passport is asked to provide more proof of identity. Why on Earth a dual British German citizen should provide his German passport is beyond me, nor have you explained it. If I have degrees in both law and medicine, I don't need to prove my medicine one to practice law, and viceversa!!! What sort of a convoluted reasoning is yours?

I am of course not advocating deliberately 'losing' a foreign passport. Just saying the rule is stupid because it inconveniences those who have nothing to hide, while those who do can circumvent it all too easily. Clearer now?
In fact, since passports last 10 years, one could time the applications so that the foreign one expires just before the British one, and when one renews the British one, the other is expired and needn't be sent to the Home Office. Et voilà. Are you with me?

In my son's case, what the employee in Her Majesty's passport office has done (if this is a one off case) is he/she has undermined him as a full British national and at the same time exposing his other nationality without considering the consequences. Again, I do not believe they have the right to do so as this may result in discrimination. There are many ways of controlling individuals for the safety and security of all without implying that their other nationality poses a threat which you have correctly highlighted above. 'I think DoctorAllcome is resentful because he is not a dual citizen'. A friend once told me that when you are a dual citizen you have the best of both worlds and when you have three it's even better. No doubt it is a previlage and some people do envy you.

I think I need to seek the opinion of an immigration lawyer before approaching HM passport office. In any event, my son's country x passport will expire a couple of months before his British passport will expire so I may just not renew it. Again, even if I choose not to renew his country x passport he will still be a dual national since he still has his citizenship. Alternatively SLD, I may consider some of your advice above!

Well, I will continue with my “nonsense”
@Jahmoud. No while travelling you do not need to carry any more than one passport. Travelling is different from applying for a passport so of course the documentation for one activity doesn’t have to match the other.

Secondly So, if I am trvelling on a British passport I am 100% British with no ifs and/or buts.. You can think that, but that’s not how international law works. The passport is only proof of one citizenship, it doesn’t erase any other citizenships you may have. If you leave the U.K. on a British passport, and get arrested or detained in another country where you are also a citizen you are not viewed by international law as 100% British. That was not decided by any one country, but by the United Nations democratically. You can dislike this all you want, but it is fact.

'I think DoctorAllcome is resentful because he is not a dual citizen'.

First, stating the facts doesn’t make me resentful, and second I do have more than one citizenship. At one time, I had three different passports. Half my family are immigrants with multiple citizenships as well. I am also well travelled and have friends who have worked for Interpol and on counter terrorism. I have worked in foreign countries and had close friends who work in embassies for various state departments.

You seem to not appreciate that you can be a citizen of a country even if you don't hold a passport.. No I did not say that. What I did say is that a passport is an internationally recognized form of ID that is used as proof of citizenship. Actually a country with compulsory identity cards CAN mistakenly deport people illegally- and you do know that most of the Windrushers that we’re deported illegally were not British citizens and their deportation was illegal only because they had ILR/permanent residency.

Just saying the rule is stupid because it inconveniences those who have nothing to hide, while those who do can circumvent it all too easily. Clearer now? I am saying that the circumvention is an illusion designed to catch out and flag those who have something to hide or less than loyal feelings to that government. As we have both said, governments already know our citizenships so the question is a test of your veracity and loyalty.

@jmahmoud
Read paragraph 6 of the document this link goes to. It may explain why your son has a dual nationality observation within his British passport.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/548220/Annex_A_passports_August_2016.pdf

@SouthLondonDaddy
Paragraph 8 Failure to Disclose Foreign Passport says exactly what I am saying. There is no circumvention. You have to disclose all foreign passports expired/active or the ability to obtain one. Failure to do so is a criminal offence. Which means although they usually choose not to prosecute (the norm), that gives them the legal right to open a file on you with a big old red flag.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/548220/Annex_A_passports_August_2016.pdf

I will now explain ghosting the passport e-chips.
First, the e-chips are loaded up by the country issuing your passport with specific identification data about you up to and including any/all biometrics they have on you. You have a unique ID.

As you present your passport to a border agent or automated border scanner like they have at Heathrow, the system reads the chip and your presence is immediately flagged up to the country that issued the passport. The passport country gives the country you are entering a quick handshake (it says ok, or detain because fleeing justice, whatever). They’re just making a show of peering at your photo, really they are waiting for that handshake to pop up on the computer. Then the border agent or gate opens.

This is all automated and is where nations have internationally cooperated to share information for security reasons. Interpol is a central hub that does international warrants and investigations and they also have access.

So, back to ghosting. Each nation only admits to tracking their own passports. But for dual/multinationals that have active passports from two or more countries everyone gets a bit paranoid or concerned about people swapping identities. Say a British/Saudi goes to Turkey on holiday...they use their British passport. But they they slide out their Saudi passport and hop over the border into Syria and instead of two weeks on a beach in Turkey they were two weeks at an ISIS compound planning something horrible....well the British government wouldn’t know. Or would they?

When they ask for and get the active passport from another country, they ghost the chip. A ghost is a copy of the chip that does not officially exist, but every nation does this, it’s all on the DL. Now they have a ghost, they can add it to the system that monitors border crossings and when the person uses their Saudi passport they too can get the notifications and trace their whereabouts.

This is what they do to ensure they can track dual/multis to same level as mono citizens. Despite the fact that dual/multi nationals are no more likely to be terrorists or spies than monos. It’s all big brother stuff.

@DoctorAllcome, thank you for explaining how ghosting chips works. So this isn't so much about checking visa stamps on a passport, which can be easily dodged by 'losing' the passport, but more about tracking the whereabouts of dual nationals - is that right? If so, it is all starting to make more sense, thank you for the explanation. It's not perfect, of course (I think Turkey allows some European citizens to enter on their paper ID cards, with no chips) but I totally get why countries do it, and I am not shocked nor offended - in fact, I'd be shocked if they didn't, like I said.

But they can't ghost a chip without seeing it, can they? Dual nationals living abroad can send certified copies of a passport, if I remember correctly.

Also, thank you for clarifying you need to send expired passports. My recollection on this was wrong.

Where we disagree is on id cards.
With compulsory ID cards there can be no doubt about whether one is a citizen or not. Can countries deport their own citizens? Well, there are countries that torture and kill their citizens... The point is not that id cards force a government to be honest, the point is that they avoid any uncertainty about the citizenship status.

I also find it quite ironic that Brits opposed id cards because they oppose the idea of a compulsory document big brother etc etc, yet passports are practically compulsory (try telling the Windrush generation you don't need one to prove citizenship), plus there is way more surveillance here than in many countries with id cards!

I have a compulsory ID card for a country. I'm not a citizen of that country, so, no, ID cards per se prove nothing.
The Windrush scandal, dreadful though it was, did not involve the threat to deport British Citizens. As has been clarified a zillion times, those people arrived in the UK as British Subjects who became citizens of their home countries as those countries gained independence from the UK. For the most part this meant losing their British status. Understandably, they didn't know they had become Jamaican, or Trinidadian. There was a widespread Home Office initiative in the late 80s early 90s for those exact people to be registered as British Citizens on the basis of how they came to the UK and their many years of residence. Thousands and thousands took up British citizenship at that point. The Windrush scandal victims by and large are those who for whatever reason, did not. Misinformation, lack of information, misunderstanding, not having the money (iirc it was £25 at the time) etc etc. The subsequent bureaucracy behemoth churns out the letters and there you have your scandal. It's similar to the numerous stories cropping up now about children being sent "deportation letters" - read the articles closely and 9 times out of 10 (if not more) the person involved didn't send in the correct paperwork. A simple phone call (instead of a sad face photo shoot with the redtops) would sort it.

There is a scary amount of scaremongering and paranoia going on, not least on this thread. Someone has been watching too many reruns of Spooks maybe.

@TheCanterburyWhales, ID cards actually prove quite a lot. What country issued yours? I bet your ID card shows "Nationality: British" or something like that. AFAIK all ID cards do report nationality. I have just looked pictures of the Polish, German, Spanish, Italian and Croatian ID cards - they all report nationality. If you know of a country whose id cards don't report nationality, please elaborate.

Compulsory id cards would have avoided the Windrush scandal because they would have provided indisputable clarity on the citizenship status of each person. Windrush also involved cases, which you seem to dismiss, of people who were deported despite being citizens, because they couldn't prove it.

This is, in fact, one of the main idiocies of the British system: a passport is supposedly not compulsory, but how do you prove citizenship without one?????? Before 1983 or thereabout, being born in the UK was enough to get citizenship, so if all your ancestors were born in the UK, up to one born in the UK before then, you're fine. However, if your citizenship depends on the immigration status of your parents at the time of your birth, good luck proving that after many years. There are children of European immigrants who were born in the UK but never applied for British citizenship, and who now can't get it because they can't prove the immigration status of their parents many years ago. Something similar happened in some of the Windrush cases.

This is why the parents of children in these situations (born here, but citizens because their parents were settled here) are recommended to apply for their children's British passport immediately - because proving it after many years can be harder, and because the racist bureaucracy of the Home Office with its hostile environment shouldn't be trusted. Of course this also means it's total bull that passports are not compulsory, they practically are. Or, you could apply for a citizenship certificate, which is even more expensive than a passport - what lunacy...

Imagine the case of someone born in the UK around 1983, and born a citizen because their parents were foreigners but settled here. This someone has a child at 20, ie in 2003. This child has a child at 20, in 2023. If no one in the family ever had a passport (why shoud they - they're not compulsory, right??) how does the child born in 2023 prove he's British? By getting hold of documents which prove the immigration status of his great-grandparents in 1983?? Do you see the idiocy of this system??

@DoctorAllcome, your link talks about disclosing the ability to obtain a foreign passport, but, in fact, there is no question about this in the passport application process. I recently applied for, and obtained, a British passport for a child who also holds another citizenship. In the application process, there was a question about other passports, not about other nationalities. So I didn't have to report anything. This was not circumvention - I was not asked if the child had or could apply for other nationalities , only if he had another passport, which he didn't at the time. Of course, had we been on some kind of MI5 watchlist, it would have been very easy to see that the parents and the siblings were dual nationals, but that was not a question.

Recently renewed an EU passport for my ds.....£26 and back within 12 days.

Because I didn't want to send an important and foreign document in the post I renewed his British passport using the one week route. We had an appointment and the interviewer noted the passport no and Ticked he box to say they had seen it. The new passport was back in under a week ( about 5 days) and cost £122 🙀..... he is only 6 and obvs not up to anything dodgy.

Thank you @DoctorAllcome it's all so interesting.

I do find it really terrifying that if you are a dual national the British government will not help you if something serious happens in the country of your other citizenship.
Would they make an exception and fly you home if a natural / terrorist activity happens and you're stuck??

So when border police scan your British passport at Heathrow ( or else where in the UK) does it tell them what you are a dual national with a passport from x as well as Britain?

@mamandematribu , it is not terrfying at all and it's nothing to do with the UK - that's just how international law works. AFAIK no country can provide consular assistance in those cases, it's not just the UK.

What is terrifying is what can happen when a country which is a dictatorship still considers you a citizen. Do you remember the case of the Chinese-born Hong-Kong based bookseller who had become a Swedish citizen? His Swedish passport didn't prevent him from being abducted by the Chinese, who were not fond of the books he had dared publish.

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/22/swedish-bookseller-allegedly-snatched-by-chinese-agents-from-train-gui-minhai

Or, similarly, it wouldn't be wise for a British citizen of Iranian descent to ever travel to Iran, even if he/she has never formally held an Iranian passport: the Iranian authorities could claim he is a citizen because of ancestry etc etc

@SouthLondonDaddy regardless if neationity it's not a good idea to travel to Iran.