Jul
Passports – Why are they still in use?
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Following my earlier post regarding that Indian Elections need technology revolution, my current post focuses on the issue of passports and how technology can be used to improve them. I believe there are many inefficiencies in this world and most of the human effort is going into solving other problems than the problems which are most important. Now According to Wikipedia,
A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth. Most often, nationality and citizenship are congruent.
The article on Wikipedia mentions a lot of details about passport. I think historically the most important developments mentioned in it are that
(1) King Henry V of England is credited with the first true invention of the passport as a means of helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands
(2) Early passports included a description of the passport holder. Attachment of photographs to passports began in the early decades of the twentieth century, when photography became widespread.
The first point establishes the need of a passport, the requirement to prove one’s identity. The second point proves the up-gradation of passports, by including a photograph passports easily became a better way to prove identity.
In the present world where science has done so much advancements, where even computers require fingerprint scan before logging in, where bloomberg access requires fingerprint scan, where databases require retina scans, and even dna samples are not time consuming ….. then why do we still have a paper based passport? A paper based passport which can be stolen, or torn, or burnt, an external paper needs to prove my identity rather than having my own self prove my identity. Any new technology including fingerprints, retina scan, dna, or many new technologies can be used as a passport. Also please note that passport standardization came in 1980 under Internatinal Civial Aviation Organization (ICVO) and I think it has been a fair amount of time and we can use another upgradation.
To think about it how many problems can be easily solved by up-grading passports. The problem of illegal immigration, spies, passports getting stolen, fake passports, terrorism and what not! I really do not see any major problem in adopting a new system but bureaucracy. We keep saying that companies should be efficient and non-bureaucratic but the most important organizations in the world still seem bureaucratic. Anyways till as a world decide to become more efficient, keep holding on to your passports, always scared of having it stolen, or burnt or destroyed, keep renewing your passport and keep getting stamps!
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8 Responses to “Passports – Why are they still in use?”
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Nandan Nilekani has left Infosys for this very reason, to head the unique identification project.
Also, I’d like to say – I don’t think it is just about technological revolution – I think it is about a whole lot of “feet on street” that is required for this.
Getting a Passport is one of the most detailed processes – if it is just changed overnight into an online system, then we will have many more Kasabs coming into the country!
In fact, more than for just the passport going online, I think it is this Unique Identification Number that can bring in that difference – imagine if our identity is verified once in a detailed fashion by the government(like the plan is for the Unique Identification Number) – we can then make a lot of security checks less strenuous – no need to give your License photocopies, no need to give your board exam copies for Date of Birth and what not!
I think the government has for once shown a real interest in this project by asking Nandan Nilekani to head this project, and (as it appears) given him full responsibility for it.
Let’s hope it all works out!
From filling up form to submitting it and then to getting it is a gargantuan task. Infact it is so inefficient that chances of getting a passport made without encountering middle man are less than 10 % (my guess is that the unorganized sector here feeds atleast 200 people in a typical capital city). Procedure is like this : People from all across the state come to its capital city and wait in 300 meter Que for 12 hours before they get their chance to inquire about their passport. And when you miss your chance you have to pay a certain penalty. (This is atrocity in the name of service.) And when you post a query on net, it goes into an account which is never opened since its was created.
My understanding is that even if this Social security number doesn’t come up there is a lot that our so called govt can do (which its not doing for a long time).
No doubt the procedure is highly inefficient. But sometimes the ineffiency of the process is so much a deterrent that it differentiates between the serious and the not-so serious ones.
We can compare it to Business Suits. What is the value added by uncomfortable business suits in board meetings/interviews/public speeches? Nothing.
We could very well do with jeans and denims that are much more comfortable. The discomfort of the business suits separates the serious ones from others.
I can cite more examples. But the idea remains the same. Sometimes the inefficiency is not to slow down the process but to make the process too difficult for casual interests.
Credits :
Thinking Strategically by Dixit and Nalebuff
Interesting point by Nattu.
Also, I totally agree with the fact that paper based Passports are outdated, but IMO with the current technology, going for a vast retina based and/or DNA and fingerprint based system might be unfeasible. Also, look at it this way, in the case of a centralized database, the onus for security is on the government, while when you make individuals carry passports, the onus for security lies on them, and the government shifts the responsibility and saves a lot of its time and effort. It might not be efficient for the people, but its easier for the babus.
I guess the need of a paper based passport arises in situations where the passport holder needs to prove his identity right away..on the spot..none of the technologies which u mentioned would come handy then..not all cops can be equipped with Retina or Fingerprint scanners…waht say??
http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/16/govt-to-introduce-e-passports.htm Link given by Atul regarding Indian Government trying some sort of E-Passports with biometric scan
I can’t agree more to this. I have gone thru agony of getting the passport and then getting it reissued. http://amitguptaz.com/amit-gupta/reissue-of-indian-passport/
Conceptually this is logical. However, this is not a decision that any country can take unilaterally. After all, it is the country we travel to, which has to recognize the alternative identification forms. Their immigration departments need to be technologically enabled to permit that.
Secondly, visas are issued by another country that signify that they authorize us to enter that country. Currently all visa systems (even in developing countries) are geared towards a paper based passport. So it is not just immigration departments but also visa departments of all countries that we might wish to go to, that would need a process to work wth paper based passports.
Finally in this era of gloalization, work authorization is proved in many countries by having a work visa stamped in your passport. The HR processes of employers in these countries are developed to accept a work visa as valid authorization. They would need to evolve an alternative mechanism to do that.
I don’t think the reference to Nandan’s project is relevant here. US has had a unique identifier (social security number) for decades. It still has a passport.