duniawala

In this Malaysian airline tragedy (I cling to the remote hope that everything is OK), it came out that 2 pax were traveling on stolen passports. I find that incredible that in this day and age, with machine readable passports and immigration checkpoints (outbound) that these were not detected. My question is a) Aren't these stolen passports reported to all countries and b) If they are, why couldn't the immigration catch these. I would think that given terrorist activities around the world this would be a top priority. Anyone care to enlighten me?

djs

One has to proactively check the Interpol database, and Maylasian authorities choose not to. There probably are more countries that don't check than do.

obscure2k

Please continue to follow this thread as I move it to the Travel Safety and Security Forum.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

emrdoc

Apparently the stolen passport database is only routinely used by the US, UK and Dubai. Many countries barely look at my passport...I guess I look innocent. :-)

Spiff

Since I don't care whether someone even has a passport, I couldn't care less if one has a false/fake passport. Open borders would make passports moot. I look forward to the day when the planet is under one (libertarian ) government and borders are simply demarcations of the past.

emrdoc

Nice soapbox...I am sure the OP appreciated your answer.

petaluma1

Even if the US is one of only a handful of countries to use the Interpol database, I am willing to bet that fake/fraudulent passports are still missed on a regular basis.

Often1

All why SecureFlight for both US international & domestic is in place.

Spiff

Perhaps other governments share my opinion. Or that they simply aren't interested in checking Interpol's database. Or that they don't think Interpol's database is reliable/accurate. Who knows?

I hope that Interpol is not successful in spreading hysteria about fake/false passports due to this incident, which is looking less and less likely to have any real sinister happenings re: the passengers whose passports were not accurate.

WillCAD

You're looking at this from a uniquely American perspective.

1) Not all passports are chipped
2) Those that are often have the chips burned out intentionally
3) There are not electronic readers (or for that matter, electricity) at every single border crossing, port, airport gate, and customs station in the entire world
4) Even if there were, there is no database of every single passport ever issued by every country in the world which can electronically track their use and wherabouts, and alert international authorities when a stolen passport is used

Or, to put it more simply, a passport is not a Visa, MasterCard, or Amex. It's more like cash; it can be stolen and forged and there is no computer in the world capable of tracking every single one.

I really love the befuddlement of my countrymen who haven't got a clue that the entire world doesn't world exactly the same as the United States. Nor should it.

But, hey, "Somebody ought to DO somethin' 'bout that!" Right?

petaluma1

Which can be beaten if one has the smarts and the money to do so.

CKDGM

1,2) All (or at least effectively all) currently-valid passports have a machine-readable OCR data zone, whether or not they have RFID chips as well (or if the chips are functional). I did have one valid through 2008 that was literally hand-written, but its replacement included an RFID chip as well as the MRZ.
3) This is true, but KUL has electricity and, I suspect, at least some OCR readers.
4) Also true, but as noted in this thread there is an Interpol database that contains information on many stolen passports, including these two.

GUWonder

(In)SecureFlight data filings don't require passport data -- a large proportion of domestic passengers don't have currently valid passport data -- and name discrepancies between the filed field data for the above fields and the passport name/data generally comes with no adverse outcomes for the passenger even on international flights out of the US.

Absent the passport number+country in the MRZ coming up as flagged, this stuff also gets missed even by the USG/US CBP when passengers are flying out of the US using doctored stolen docs.

GUWonder

MRZ's enable more easily fooling "the system". Keep in mind that only a small minority of passports are examined for consistency between the biodata in the body and the biodata in the MRZ. Inconsistency between the two is missed even at US POEs where governmental paranoia is much more extensive than in various other places.

slawecki

i lost one in london, wife and i had pair taken in northern france. went to embassy to get replacements. did not see much interest by employees to report them missing. london guy commented, "fleet street must be paved with us passports"