Passport Book Outdated
 

I was recently looking into the idea of getting a passport card, and realized that it only works for land/sea border crossings and not by air. I was wondering why this is the case, seeing how the book is outdated and no one wants to carry something that big when all your information can be stored on a card. I guess my question is, why do I still need a passport book when flying across borders?

But your travel history isn't stored on the card. Neither are visas. So you carry them around.

International travel is, in many ways, a least common denominator scenario. Unless every country agrees to a new protocol then adoption of that new system is necessarily limited because some people will end up traveling to that place and need the "other" option still.

I guess you will have to attached visas on your forehead.

We'll all be microchipped at some point, but we're not there yet, just as not all countries are at compulsory national identity cards.

Perhaps the US can be the vanguard for this the way it demanded other countries to introduce biometric passports.

How big is your passport??????? Mine is about the size of my phone...and thinner.... I'm mystified as to how THAT can be such a burden...

By what metric is the classic passport "outdated"?? You are the only person Ive ever heard suggest that....curious as to how you came to that conclusion....

At this point, it should be on your phone, and if that doesn't work, you should have a card the size of a credit card as a backup. No need to carry around a large booklet not capable of fitting in your wallet, this isn't 1960.

Paper/Sticker Visa = outdated. Make them electronic, throw it onto a card that can fit in your wallet, boom.

Agree. That makes sense theoretically, but once you start recognizing the massive technological and capital investment required by - at the very least - dozens of countries in a way that they would all be able to talk to each other, it looks extremely daunting. You can conclude that it ain't happening any time soon.

Wonderful idea. That will solve the border problem too, since everyone will be able to buy them from Russia or China on the cheap. In fact, put all your assets into Bitcoin and keep them on your phone while you're at it.

Of course the technology exists to eliminate passport books and cards altogether and rely on biometrics alone. All visas and other travel docs could be "attached" to the biometrics file.

But, doing this requires pretty much universal agreement. If you show up at the German border and have not signed your passport, you won't be admitted? Who cares about signatures? Answer: The Germans.

When you enter Schengen, rhe rules are that your passport must be stamped so that it can be seen when you exit. A possible hassle if it is not done.

I am not sure that a cost-benefit analysis makes what you propose worthwhile even if were practical. Putting government employees out of work is not favored in many places.

There is always the option to NOT have passport. It will severely limit your ability to travel, but what's that compared to the "inconvenience" of having a passport.

I think the better option would be to make bilateral agreements with other countries to accept each other's passport/id cards for travel by air. For example, Canadians indicated that they would be OK accepting our passport cards at their airports, but it is our own government that limited the use of these cards to land and sea crossings only. I am pretty sure Irish would also be willing to admit US citizens using passport cards since their own passport cards can be used for international air travel.

Visas still exist. And plenty of countries stamp passports.

We have 48 page passports. An older set has extra pages. At the time we were making yearly or more trips to a visa-required country that only gave single-entry visas.

These days, same country, less travel, long term visas--we will probably be halfway through our 48 pages when the time runs out.

And although a database exists and you can be looked up in theory, in practice it's not always working, your entry wasn't necessarily recorded, the French waved you through at Dover, whatever. The stamps cost almost nothing in either time or money, and they make it easier for both governments and travellers to see how long someone's been in the Schengen area. I can't see there being a push to eliminate them anytime soon.

This works great in continental Europe where nearly every adult is legally required to have a national ID card even if they never go more than a mile from home. In the US, where there's no national ID and our 54 different driving licenses carry no indication of citizenship (or even legal residency, in some cases), most people who travel abroad are going to visit some country that requires the "real" passport book, so an agreement that allowed Americans to travel by air with passport cards would only really help that small subset of people who travel exclusively to Canada but don't always go by land.

It also works in Europe because EU citizens' free movement rights mean that it's impossible for a Belgian to overstay in Ireland, so there's no need for stamps. Other than Canada, I doubt many other countries would admit Americans without something to stamp, especially since the U.S. wouldn't admit those countries' citizens without something to stamp.

There is a lot of Americans who travel to Canada by air, so I would not call them a small subset. At the very least, the US government could allow the passport card to be used to return to the US by air, but for some reason they are not willing to do that either. IMO, if they did, that would prompt both Canada and Mexico to start accepting the cards at their airports POE. These two counties would cover a large portion of travelling US public. Then, theoretically both Ireland and the UK could accept passport cards too because they have their own immigration systems. Yes, I do understand that travelling to the Schengen Area would require a good old passport book, but the Schengen Area alone should not be the reason why travelling Americans would have to carry passport book for any and all international air travel.

You seem to squarely concentrate on the EU, but my comment regarding the air travel using passport card was more pointed to individual countries that have their own immigration databases such as Canada, Mexico, UK, etc. If the Schengen countries are willing to use such an outdated 'technology' as passport stumps to protect their borders and enforce their immigration laws, then more power to them.

I doubt that would ever happen in our lifetime as it would require every country in the world to abolish paper visas/stamps and adopt a 100% electronic visa and entry/exit system. The only country I'm aware of that's done both is Australia.

Lots of Americans travel to Canada by air, but I suspect that a significant portion of those Americans also travel to other countries by air and would still have passport books. I agree, though, that it serves no purpose for the US government not to accept its own passport cards for air travel from CA/MX, especially since both of those countries allowed Americans to fly with ID and proof of citizenship until Uncle Sam changed his own rules.

As for UK/IE, although I agree that they could theoretically accept passport cards, I don't see the US reciprocally accepting Irish passport cards, and the UK doesn't have one, so it seems unlikely to be something that any of the governments involved would expend much effort on.

I concentrate on the EU for two reasons:
First, it's the only large bloc that allows passport-free travel. While there are other countries with reciprocal agreements (UK/IE CTA, US/CA and US/MX land borders), anyone who travels beyond those limited areas would need a passport book anyway, whereas a Bulgarian can get all the way to Finland, Ireland, Portugal, etc. without a passport.
Second--and IMO more importantly--in most of the EU member states, it's illegal to walk out your front door without your ID. Every adult already has a national ID, so using it as a travel document relieves the traveller of the entire passport application process. The only thing Americans save by getting a passport card instead of the passport book is $8 per year and a little bit of bag/pocket space.

It'd be interesting to know how many Irish citizens have passport cards, since I suspect that there are lots of Irish citizens who travel outside the CTA but don't leave the EU/EEA.

The thing with the Irish passport card is that you can only get it if you already have a passport book, and if your passport book has 6 months validity left when you apply, so will the card.

And apparently you can't just reuse the book's photo for the card unless you are applying for both at the same time.

If I were Irish I wouldn't bother as I don't find it particularly onerous to carry a passport book around.

Australia still has the capability to stamp - and does so if Smartgate fails to recognise you.

However Australia and New Zealand are working on the concept of "Cloud Passports" - fully digital passports which will initially allow NZ/Australian nationals to travel between the two countries using no physical passport at all, but rather a "virtual" passport stored on government data centres.

I have an Australian stamp in my passport. Granted, I had to ask for it, and it's more of a souvenir, but even Australia can fall back to stamps if needed.

Outdated or not, expect increased costs for US passports and passport cards effective April 2nd for those required to use DS-11 to get a US passport. Higher price but no better outcome at least for me.