§ Brian WhiteTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to prevent the issuing of passports to people with false identities. [148597]
§ Beverley HughesAs indicated in its 2003–08 Corporate and Business Plan, the UK Passport Service is taking forward a range of initiatives to reduce passport fraud through improved fraud detection and prevention. These include
Continuing work to eliminate fraudulent applications for passports in identities of deceased infants and prosecution of those perpetrating this type of fraud;The establishment in December 2003 of a new more comprehensive database for the recording and dissemination of lost, stolen and recovered passport information;Exploring the benefits of using private sector and other government databases in establishing identity;Developing the training of passport examiners to an accredited standard to ensure that knowledge and competency are regularly tested;Introducing secure delivery for the despatch of all passports to eliminate thefts and losses in the post;Increasing the professionalism of its fraud investigation capability through the creation of fraud and intelligence units in each of its offices, and strengthening training and support for these units;Developing its IT systems to undertake more automatic checks; to better link passport records to an individual: and to identify passport fraud;Developing the use of facial recognition biometrics to check new applications against images of known fraudsters and to implement more secure passports incorporating biometric identifiers;Changing the law to align the penalty associated with fraudulently obtaining a driving licence with that for fraudulently obtaining a passport and making these offences arrestable; and by creating a new offence relating to being in possession or control of false identity documents, without reasonable cause; and705WActively working with law enforcement agencies to apprehend, disrupt and dismantle the activities of those involved in passport fraudThese initiatives build on the successful implementation of a number of anti-fraud measures including the strengthening of the counter signatory requirement for passport applications and the prevention of fraudulent applications using the identity of dead children.
In the context of the latter initiative the United Kingdom Passport Service (UKPS) have used data provided by the office of National Statistics to stop 408 passport applications in the identities of dead children and have identified over 1000 cases in which this route was used to obtain passports fraudulently in the past. In all more than 120 people have been arrested as a result of this work and the details of the remainder have been circulated to law enforcement agencies at home and abroad.