New, "More Secure" US NextGen Passport
Oct 6, 2014, 4:14 am
#1
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New, "More Secure" US NextGen Passport
Yes.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/...921-story.html
Slated for 2016 and probably coming with higher passport costs, sooner or later, as the cost of production for the new biodata page and security features are inevitably going to be more expensive than what we have currently. [At least that is what is to be expected given what happened when some EU countries made the transition.]
Additional passport page inserts will also be banned.
http://rapidtravelchai.boardingarea....itional-pages/
How quickly things change.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/...921-story.html
Slated for 2016 and probably coming with higher passport costs, sooner or later, as the cost of production for the new biodata page and security features are inevitably going to be more expensive than what we have currently. [At least that is what is to be expected given what happened when some EU countries made the transition.]
Additional passport page inserts will also be banned.
http://rapidtravelchai.boardingarea....itional-pages/
140 countries have signed onto the push to cap passport validity to five years. Most of those that have reduced their validity period down to no more the five years don't allow for adding pages and those that did have all stopped it in so far as I've not seen them allow it anymore. The US has maintained a ten year general validity period for ordinary adult passports and doesn't seem as likely to kill that off than it is to kill of the additional page inserts -- but neither is scheduled for elimination even as the U.S. is an advocate against other countries allowing for page inserts or allowing for passport validity periods to be greater than 5 years. It's rather amusing when what's good for the goose is not considered good for the gander.
It used to be more common to see multiple passport books bound together than to see additional passport page inserts in non-US passports. It probably still is, for the latter seems to have largely dropped off the radar.
It used to be more common to see multiple passport books bound together than to see additional passport page inserts in non-US passports. It probably still is, for the latter seems to have largely dropped off the radar.
Last edited by GUWonder; Oct 6, 2014 at 4:35 am
Oct 6, 2014, 10:23 am
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I'm not happy with this no additional pages business. There does not even seem to be a valid reason for this change.
Oct 6, 2014, 11:20 am
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I got the info I needed from various applicable sources to determine that there is no physical reason why additional pages couldn't be inserted into those passports too -- as long as the plan to have the hard polycarbonate biodata page is done in the ways applicable currently with say some EU passports.
Oct 6, 2014, 11:22 am
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I'm old enough to remember whe we had 5 year passports. They cost 15 dollars + 2 dollars for some other charge -- total of 17 USD. Then Reagan came along with one of his many efforts to "help" (by "help", Reagan actually always meant another four-letter word that rhymes with"duck") the middle class by extending passport validity to 10 years while raising the price to 55 dollars. The rationale at the time was that the cost/year was only going up a little, from 3 something dollars to 5.50. Now they repeatedly raised the price, eliminated endorsements, which means that any change requires a new passport at full price, introduced a charge of 83 dollars for new pages, and now they want get rid of that soon. The net result is that the average annual cost of a passport will have gone from about 3 dollars in 1980 to probably soon over 50 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, 3 1980 dollars is about 10 dollars today.
Oct 6, 2014, 12:00 pm
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Having 5-year passports just means that more people will have to carry two passports around, if they live in or frequently visit a country that issues visas or residence permits as stickers in passports (which I believe most countries still do).
Oct 6, 2014, 1:21 pm
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The irony is that the more people that have two valid passports with some overlapping validity, the more likely a passport will be available for misuse by others.
Oct 6, 2014, 1:25 pm
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According to the second article, the reason no more additional passport pages is because US does not accept foreign passports with additional passport pages for travel to US.
Oct 6, 2014, 2:48 pm
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This seems to be a case of the U.S. unilaterally choosing to restrict what it issues even when there is no obligation or external pressure to enact the restriction.
Oct 7, 2014, 1:20 am
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Even as a non-american I'm disappointed in these moves as they would seem to lock in the changes made to our own passports (at the request of USA) just when there seemed to be hope some of those changes could be reversed.
Oct 8, 2014, 9:33 pm
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I think the current "large" US passport is up to 48 pages, with the "standard" at 28 pages. When I lived in China, I had to get a new visa every year (taking up a whole page) and, now, going to China at least once a year (plus Viet Nam and Sri Lanka, all who use full-page stick-ins), my 48 pages are filling up quickly. I don't understand the anti-Reagan rant, though, the big increases in passport costs have been during subsequent administrations, with this latest round under the Obama rule. Also, in the article, it says pages will be numbered; aren't they now (mine are)?
Last edited by relangford; Oct 8, 2014 at 9:41 pm
Oct 8, 2014, 10:23 pm
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-- and inserts have letters IIRC. I'm pretty sure that some of the currently-issued ones, though, have a different background picture on each page instead of numbers. It's a lot easier to use consecutive numbers/letters to check for missing/altered pages than it is to remember what the order of the pictures is.
Oct 8, 2014, 11:12 pm
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