21 February 2007 New passport applicants to have face-to-face interviews
People in the UK applying for their first passport will have to take part in an interview from April this year.
Aiming to cut the number of forged passports, the initiative is being introduced by the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) at the Home Office and will cover about ten per cent of the total applications submitted each year.
Some 610,000 people each year will soon be required to visit one of the agency's 69 offices which are located across the UK, although webcam interviews could be made available for residents living in very remote areas.
The chief executive of the IPS told the Independent that the new passport scheme would present an inconvenience for some, but added: "We all as citizens recognise we have to be inconvenienced by airport security but it's in our collective benefit."
James Hall also commented that the interview questions put to passport applicants would not be "particularly intrusive".
Government figures find that almost three in four (74 per cent) fraudulent applications are made for first-time passports.
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