Minimum Standards for Passports
 

I remember all the yelping about biometrics in passports and documents. Now that I need a passport to go back and forth between the US and Canada, I am wondering if I will have a problem with ICE on my way home because my Canadian passport lacks any bar code or biometic identifier.

It is a passport that was manually created by the Canadian Consular office in Miami about 4 years ago - and I specifically had it done there to avoid all these bar codes, and other crap they are putting in passports issued these days.

Is there a requirement that a passport have a bar code or magnetic strip to be valid for entry to the US? Is my current passport along with my Green Card enough to get me back home (here) without a big hassle, or do I need to apply for a new one?

Can you say OCR? That counts as "machine readable".

There should be a couple of lines at the edge of the cover/identification page that contain your name, passport number, etc. That text is specifically formed for optical character recognition.

It looks something like this:
P>COUNTRY>LASTNAME>FIRSTNAME>>>>>>>>>>>>
PASSPORTNUBMER#>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I don't have mine in front of me, so it might be out of order and there may be things missing.

So far as I am aware it will not make any difference, your green card is the important document. My understanding is that the requirement for machine readable blah blah depends on the date of issue of the passport and is specifically in regard to visitors as opposed to permanent residents but hey I have been known to be wrong before :p

Edit to update

U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs)
must provide one of the following:

I-551, Permanent Resident Card (“Green Card”)
Machine-Readable Immigrant Visa endorsed with a CBP Admission Stamp
Temporary Residence Stamp (ADIT stamp) contained in a passport or on Form I-94
Valid Reentry Permit
Unexpired Immigrant Visa

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/al...anentResidents

My passport does not have that information...no OCR, strip or machine readable data of any kind. It was made by hand at the Consulate.

KEWL!!! How does it differ from the ones the rest of us get??

--PP

well, firstly it's a Canadian passport...so that is one difference :) but it looks like any standard passport - it's just missing all the electronic stuff like OCR, machine readable, etc.

So let's get this straight. You had your passport specially made just to be, um..., difficult? I have sent passports off to places for the newest technology (machine readable to London, back in the day, for my NZ passport, and RFID to Sydney for my Aussie passport), so that I always have the newest technology. I'm not suggesting that. But taking extra steps to have an outdated passport? Just unnecessary. Not that you'll have any problems since you're and LPR and have a PRC anyway, but still :td:.

Why do you assume I'm being difficult? I don't like any type of encoding on my document...I don't want my movements tracked or encoded on my passport. There is nothing difficult about it - it's either valid or invalid.

When I get a passport with a RFID chip, rest assured I will destroy the chip inside and make it unusable.

And what makes you think that not having an encoded travel doc means they can't track your movements?

Now let's all put on our tinfoil beanies and recite the paranoia pledge...

:D
:cool:
:(

Do you really think that they can't just use the machine-readable bit of your PRC to track your movements? Or that they can't type in your passport number?

You do understand that their typing in your passport number gives them EXACTLY the same info as the machine readable bit and almost exactly the same info as RFID, right? It just means they have to do more work in typing it, wasting your time as much as theirs...also, everyone else has normal passports, why do you need to be special? That's called being difficult. Not to mention non-sensical.

Regardless, I don't want the OCR or anything like that on my passport, nor will I allow the RFID chip to function if I ever get a passport with one.

As for being difficult or special, regardless, it's much easier and faster for me to drive to downtown Miami and have my passport made by a Consular officer in an hour while I sit in their nice office and read magazines instead of filling out a mound of paperwork to ship off to Ottawa so I can wait weeks for my passport to be made and mailed to me.

The purpose of my post was to make sure the passport I currently have can be used to go back and forth without a problem. As another poster has answered that, I am satisfied I don't need to replace it.

As for the tinfoil stuff, I maintain it's really none of the Canadian Government's business where I travel to or when I travel. I don't live there anymore and they have no business knowing my business. If I had an extra 25K around, I would probably do what a great many people do and that is buy a second passport from another country with a different name to enter other countries when traveling and use my Canadian passport to return back here. You would be surprised by the number of people who carry second passports with alternate identities in addition to their US/Canada/UK/whatever passport to guard their privacy...like it or not.

And I'm sure they'll charge you with a Indictable Offence for mutilating your passport if and when they discover it. You're a citizen of Canada, and expect to travel internationally; I think it's absurd that you think it's unfair for your government to know where you've been when they've issued you the very document that allows you to travel.

And by the way, all my comments were made AFTER I said that they were irrelevant, because you had a valid PRC.

You might want to look up the thread on RFID passports here...there is a long list of FTers who will be destroying the RFID tags in their US passports.

Destroying my passport is not an indictable offense in Canada (nor do I believe it's one here either but I could be wrong), although destroying it might invalidate it though. I doubt deactivating the RFID tag qualifies as destroying the passport unless there is proof it was deliberate. Proving the RFID tag failed because of deliberate tampering is very hard unless there is physical damage and the web is full of tips and tricks on how to deactivate or destroy the tag without leaving obvious traces of damage.

No, I don't think it's absurd to state that Canada doesn't need to know where I travel to. They have no jurisdication over me anymore. I don't live there and my residency is long abandoned. They can know when I enter or leave Canada, but I don't think it's any of their business if I take a trip to a third country. I am a US resident, so that information would be germaine to and available to ICE here. Once my naturalization is completed here, I will continue to abide by the laws of this country because I live here, but it doesn't mean I won't use all legal and available means to protect my privacy and my activities from prying eyes as many US citizens currently do - and more are likely to do in the future as the level of monitoring is stepped up.

I don't need Canada's permission to travel - the document was issued for the purpose of establishing proof of my citizenship to other countries and establishing the basis for my admittance to those countries as a visitor. If they decide to revoke my passport, I can petition for temporary US documents so I can travel abroad.

Those new machine-readable passports are actually better.
Re-entering my country was easy, because there was only one other person in front of me at Customs....in the "new machine-readable passport" area. Took less than 2 mins. If that's all it takes, then I don't care if it's an invasion of privacy or not. I have nothing to hide.

First of all, I don't think the OP knows what OCR is.
OCR stands for optical character recognition. Basically it's a piece of software that will recognize ordinary text for what it is.

Banks have it to get account numbers from checks, border crossings have it to read information like:
which is not encoded, but in plain view and you probably have it to recognize any printed document and import it into word for editing.

Basically if the OP has these 2-3 lines with a similar format, then the passport is machine-readable.

If the passport was created by hand (everything written by hand) then I'd like to see such a passport :).

Oh btw... barcodes and RFID are not the same thing :).

My 0.02...
I have a passport from, let's say a developing country.. and all the data has actually been filled out by hand (nice clear block letters though) - not even typed. Needless to say, it is not machine-readable in that it does not have the information ">>>>>NAME>>>>" etc. on any of the original pages.
However, I do have a few visa that do have that information in that format. What I've noticed is that the US Immigration officer will usually flip to a visa that does have that information at the bottom, scan it through, and then go back and correct some of the information (or delete extraneous information)... Of course, I'm not sure if the rule, if there is one, states that the information MUST be contained on the original passport pages...

I dont know canadian law but if you commit an offence of mutating your passport can the goverment then revoke the passport upon an attempted re-entry?
cheers
howie

I hate to tell you this but your still a canadian citizen and therefore bound by their rules. I would suggest you renounce your canadian citizenship if you feel so strongly about this. The truth of the matter is any customs agent can figure out where you have been by a simple request for your boarding passes.Unless of course you carry around fake boarding passes??
cheers
howie

Is that the fake "I hate to tell you this" line I read above?

Also, the Canadian government is nowhere near as extraterritorial in its approach as the US government is, so the claim that a former resident of Canada is bound by Canadian rules is not wholly accurate and can even be downright false too.

The truth of the matter is that customs agents can't figure out where you have been merely by way of a simple request for boarding passes. And fake boarding passes don't even need to come into play for customs agents to go barking up the wrong tree.

The government would have to prove intentional attempt to vandalize state property. In the case of destroyed RFID, it won't be readily discernable to the government such that they'd be able to make the case unless some here get their way and the 5th Amendment gets tossed out and "confessions"/"admissions"/"statements" from torture are allowed into a court, kangaroo or otherwise. (Most of these RFIDs are going to fail when it comes to frequent travellers who keep this thing on person often.)

In the name of "minimum passport security" some "security" types are even lining up to eliminate the ability to apply for a passport without stopping by for the applicant's photo being taken by government employees. That is, application by mail seems to have annoyed some "security" types.

So wait when he enters canada they have no right to know where their own citizen has traveled?
cheers
howie

Well it seems to me that it's just as easy to send a fake person with fake identifcation to get a passport at a post office as it is to mail it in. This sounds more like a rule that a union would come up with!!
cheers
howie

Not former resident, current citizen --- big distinction.

As a matter of fact, it IS an indictable offense in Canada, and likely is in the United States as well.

I refer you to the Canadian Criminal Code, specifically [R.S., 1985, c. C-46] Part XI s. 430, subsections 1.1 for the definition of the offence, and subsection 4(a) for clarification of its status as indictable, and of the related prison sentence (i.e. two years).

Best not to argue law with lawyers.

In case you don't have access to the resources, let me snip it for you:

(1.1) Every one commits mischief who wilfully

(a) destroys or alters data;

(b) renders data meaningless, useless or ineffective;

(c) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use of data; or

(d) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with any person in the lawful use of data or denies access to data to any person who is entitled to access thereto.

(4) Every one who commits mischief in relation to property, other than property described in subsection (3),

(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years;

"Former resident" and "current citizen" are not mutually exclusive. And laws applicable to residents aren't necessarily applicable to current citizens who are "former residents", particularly so in Canada in a way that wouldn't be clear to most Americans as our government is one of the biggest believers in extraterritoriality around.

It's not a rule that a union came up with ... it's something that "security" idiots who "sympathize" with US DHS came up with.

By the way, who said I was talking about the US government being intent on this change for US citizens? I didn't. US DHS is more intent that other countries do this for their citizens.

Most countries in the world don't care where their citizens have travelled to, and they certainly don't formally track such things for the majority of their own citizens who travel abroad. Add this to the list of things that doesn't make US DHS happy.

I agree with you that they are not mutually exclusive, but that's not the point I was making. If the OP wants to travel internationally, it is irrelevant where he resides, he is a citizen of Canada. Therefore, regardless of his allegiance or lack thereof, he is still obligated by the relevant Canadian laws concerning its citizens, issuance of passports, monitoring of foreign travel (not that these exist, but theoretically), and so forth. See above citation of Can Code for reference.

Of course it's not the point you were making; it's the point I was making -- laws applicable in Canada to Canadian residents (citizens or not) may not necessarily be applicable to Canadian citizens no longer resident in Canada. And that's before the problem prosecutors would have in demonstrating that something was intentional.

Even putting a passport in a microwave can be done for reasons not related to intentionally damaging the passport -- it can be done to disinfect it. A government would have trouble proving that a passport RFID was intentionally damaged in a way as to violate applicable law (if any).

Where a person resides can be more relevant than the country of which he is a citizen. Example: Canadian citizen resident in the US who goes to Cuba and spends money there without UST-OFAC approval. Also, some countries do not exert extraterritorial jurisdiction over their citizens to the scope and extent that the US government does; that is, the US government reaches over our borders more than the Canadian government reaches over their borders.

And therefore the wonderful concept of strict liability offenses comes into play. His mens rea, or lack thereof, is irrelevant and does not need to be proven by a prosecutor --- not under the section I quoted above, but if you REALLY would like me to I'm sure I can find it (almost certainly would be a summary offence, not an indictable offence, but that's not the point you're making, is it now?). Only the actus reus is necessary.

Every legal argument I have been involved in had at least two lawyers (ie one for each side) so one of them had to be wrong.:p

He did say to destroy it was not an indictable offence. The code you refer to is about "wilful" destruction. I am pretty certain if he were to accidentally destroy (not negligently or recklessly) but purely accidentally it would not be an indictable offence. The evidential problems for the prosecution would be interesting to say the least. :D

So is said. Of course you can find whatever you want to try to make a case (after all, there are, as said above, two lawyers in many cases), but that doesn't mean Canadian prosecutors would even get to taking it to court, or put in for extradition proceedings to enable a prosecution for such, or even win.

Did you read what you posted earlier about ".... is guilty of an indictable offence", or is it not applicable for reasons related to "snipping out"?

The government would be in violation of its own criminal code, going by what was appropriately included above. :D

I was actually pointing out to you, in reference to my argument about strict liability, that IF "wilful" destruction could not be proven (a requirement for the statute I cited), then just reckless destruction, which would be the strict liability offence, would likely not be indictable. The indictable offence referred to the cited statute, which concerned only those offences which include mens rea on the part of the perpertrator.

Just because something is not an "indictable offence" does not necessarily make it a "strict liability offence" or a "summary offence". (Too bad it's not readily possible to draw Venn diagrams on FT to illustrate that point.) Whether by law (including that which has the force of law), policy or practice, extraterritoriality and universal jurisdiction may not necessarily be a given; and so that which is applicable to residents may well not be applied to citizens who are no longer resident in the country of citizenship.

Interesting find...well firstly, they need prove that I deliberately destroyed the tag....absent cutting or burn marks, that will be almost impossible for them to prove.

Secondly, Canada has no jurisdiction over me as a non resident. They cannot control my movements, tax me, or do anything else unless I am on their soil.

As for the legal information above - then I plead guilty as charged. I have violated that statute consistently for years by using fake names, fake addresses and other misleading information to destabalize and disorient the various databases that hold information on me. My ultimate goal is to fill the records linked to me with so much garbage that a simple database querry in the future will come back with pages of useless unrelated data. Since I once had access to the records held on me at Seisnt, I have a good idea as to what they are looking for and linking, so it's not too hard to figure out ways to defeat their logic as you go.

Applying the practices of the US government to how Canada does things is misleading - their reach is not as broad nor as aggressive. As a staunch civil libertarian, I hold that I fall outside their jurisdiction and they have no need to know when/where/why I travel. The US has jurisdiction over me now, and although my libertarian feelings are uncomfortable with the level of tracking and tracing going on here, I follow the law - although I won't make it easy for them.

Disabling the RFID tag is a matter of personal security more than liberty. I don't want to be walking down a street in a foreign country while someone with a tag reader is able to pull my name and nationality off the passport sitting in my napsack and then use that information against me in some way. It's only common sense.


Also, to clear up any misconceptions, my passport is not made by hand in such a way that it was actually written out by hand - "made by hand" in this context was meant to describe the Consular officer using their local equipment to type out my information and seal my photo into the document instead of the printers/sealers that produce the passports in their central office. It's not actually written out or printed by hand.

As a sort-of related aside, I had an interesting experience when applying for my two US visas within a couple of months. One of the questions on the form is list all the countries you have visited in the last ten years with the dates of visit. For both visas I noted the individual countries in Asia, Africa and America (with stamps in my passport that showed I had been there) and put E.U. for the countries in Europe. For the Toronto consulate (first visa) that was fine. In Montreal (second visa), the officer was ready to refuse my visa because she insisted on knowing exactly which countries I had been to. When I told her I didn't really remember since I had travelled a lot and couldn't check (no entry or exit stamps in my passport) she still wouldn't budge. So I made up a list on the spot to make her happy. Some people... :rolleyes:

FWIW, even if you go by your passport, there are some countries that do not stamp your passport on a regular basis in my experience.

I've made many trips where I have departed the US, transferred planes in AMS, arrived in a 3rd country where my passport was not stamped on arrival - nor was it stamped on departure. I then fly back via AMS, then to the US where they don't stamp my passport at the point of entry.

The only record I have of the trip upon return is my credit card bill and bank statement of ATM withdrawals :D