flyerhog

Really? If you're from the US, State Department takes loss of passport seriously. I recall that when I reported it to the embassy, they were doing a follow up investigation as to who stole it. I lost mine many many years ago and I still get taken to secondary everytime I land into IAH.

N830MH

Something wasn't right. They stolen passports from Thailand. Immigration computer system do not have database access. No one who responsible for this. I am very concerns about those 5 passengers who stolen passports. They didn't put on "No Fly Lists". He could be arrested or deported. Immigration computer system that do not have invalid or stolen. Could be big mistake. It wasn't their fault. No one who blame them against those guys, but they didn't caught the guys. They have keep terrorist off the plane. Do not put him onboard the aircraft unless if the passport is valid. Every time they have to check the passport before boarding the aircraft.

GUWonder

You're an exception then; that and/or the government considers that you may have a history of voluntarily "sharing" your passport and be up to that currently. Most people who have had a reported lost or stolen US passport don't end up taken to secondary inspection everytime they arrive at a US port of entry/CBP clearance facility.

State doesn't have the resources to extensively investigate most reported passport thefts. If a pattern is noticed in those or other reports, then there may be increased resource allocation to investigate specific incidents. If there is strong suspicion of the passport having been voluntarily sold or "shared" by the person (or a related party) whose passport is reported lost/stolen and/or otherwise misused, then your kind of outcome becomes more probable than would otherwise be the case.

Louie_LI

I lost one US passport, over twenty years ago. Every single time I enter the US, I am asked about it. At certain ports of entry, I always get a secondary inspection (JFK); at others just a few questions (SEA, IAD, etc.).

angatol

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petaluma1

Thanks for confirming what I suspected was true: all the databases in the world won't prevent people from flying with fraudulent/fake documents.

Early on in the Malaysia Air story, a security expert was on television saying that people fly all the time with documents that conceal their true identity.

GUWonder

Interpol has exploited the situation as I had known it would (and mentioned in the MH thread on the missing plane). I-checkit has been rolled out now and Qatar and Air Arabia signed up for it to vet against Interpol's SLTD database.

http://rt.com/news/interpol-stolen-p...-database-318/

http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/...ting/I-Checkit

The following may be interesting to some but it's not news to me:
http://www.interpol.int/enเธ%20%20เธ.../SLTD-Database

Noble still wants it to be used systematically by airlines, hotels and banks. It would make it easier for his US backers and the closest intelligence sharing allies to expand the international mass surveillance infrastructure, as Edward Snowden's docs show too.

GUWonder

An ATS score may change due to what the USG files when a passport is reported stolen/lost. If the passport reported has been acknowledged somehow -- automatically or manually -- as misused after the report was taken, then you're more likely to have more issues than others; much the same and worse goes for those suspected of selling/sharing a passport. "No good deed goes unpunished" .... sometimes but not always.

GUWonder

You mean which governments almost always physically scan most passengers' passports on exit from the country and/or immigration/customs union/zone? And scan for what?

If you answer those questions, then I likely already know the answer or can get a very good one.

angatol

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GUWonder

The airline or airline kiosk or website/app doesn't ask you for your passport details on FCO-LHR flights? That data is just data taken from MRZ or provided by manual entry.

The FCO passport control people sometimes scan passports; and sometimes they just look at the cover of my passport and perhaps only flip to a random visa page to place an exit stamp (if even that).

It's uncommon for government authorities to physically scan exiting passengers' passports to do the scan against the Interpol SLTD database.

The US, UK and the UAE account for most of the passport queries against the SLTD database, and the US and UK most frequently don't have physical exit control checks that have the government authorities directly scanning the passport against SLTD databases. The US and UK are mainly relying upon the airlines and/or passenger-supplied data when it comes to checking exiting passengers against SLTD and other databases.

angatol

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GUWonder

My info may be sort of outdated, according to a well-placed liaison who is still looking into this. The US, UK and UAE together accounted for most queries historically but that may no longer be true for the most recent quarters and it is unlikely to be the case this year.

We know that what the airline or passenger supplies can be gamed. No skin off my back, as long as contraband WEIs don't get allowed onto my flights -- something that passport checking cannot do.

Djlawman

Ron Noble (who I've met from when we were both federal prosecutors) says that only about 20 of the 190 or so countries check their airline passenger rosters against the list of known stolen passports maintained by Interpol. Malaysia is not one of them.

Spiff

How can we get the other 20 to stop wasting time/resources?