Passports

[chunkichik]

Just read this on a holiday site

Each passenger to the USA whose passport is issued after 25 October 2004 and before the introduction of biometric passports will need to obtain a visa from the United States Embassy in London and Belfast. This must be collected in person.


I need to get passports for the boys this year, does this apply to them?

Anita

[Nostromo]

I thought that the new EC-UK passports are all biometric - in which case they shouldn't need a visa? But I may be wrong.

[LiesaAnna]

i just dont understand it! steves runs out in Nov, and we're going in Nov! it in my opinion has never been that clear, steve had a machine readable passport! does that mean he has to go in person????????????

[chunkichik]

Just looked at the UK passport site, looks like we should be okay as we need passports for November and will send off for them at least 3 months before

(The UKPS is planning to implement a facial recognition image biometric in the British Passport book from late 2005/early 2006. The biometric can be derived from a passport photograph and will be in accordance with international standards.)

Anita

[LiesaAnna]

so hopefully we wont have to go in person? as they should be able to get info from passport photo??????????????????

[Robert5988]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Just read this on a holiday site

Each passenger to the USA whose passport is issued after 25 October 2004 and before the introduction of biometric passports will need to obtain a visa from the United States Embassy in London and Belfast. This must be collected in person.


I need to get passports for the boys this year, does this apply to them?
[/quote]

I believe that was the position a little while ago when the US government intended to introduce biometric passports in October 2004.

However as most countries were not be able to issue biometric passports by that date(including the USA) it was delayed for a year to October 2005. So presumably that is an out of date holiday site.

The UK are not likely to issue biometric passports before October 2005. So if your passport is due to run out soon after that date it is a good idea to get them renewed early. I read on this site you can renew them up to 9 months before the due date and you will have a passport to run for 10 years 9 months.

[MaggieAllan]

When I looked into this a while ago I was told to renew my passport well before Oct 05...mine runs out Nov 05...and to even renew Allans before then, his runs out Dec 06, just in case there are problems with the biometric ones being issued. It is cheaper to lose one year on his passport than pay for a visa and/or have problems if we waited to get a biometric one.

[steph_goodrum]

There are 2 issues being confused here. The requirement for PASSPORTS is that after Oct 2004 ALL persons must have a machine readable passport (the UK ones have been for some time) This is like the bar code at the back of your passport and each person travelling has to have one, including a day old baby as the barcode only contains info for one person.

The other is the biometric requirement (which affect VISAs) which was to have been implemented in Oct 2004 but an act of Congress has deferred that till Oct 2005, so any person who has a passport issued before Oct 2005 has no need to worry about a visa provided they meet the other requirements for travel under visa waiver.

[steph_goodrum]

Maggie
Allan wont lose a year on his passport as up to nine months validity from an existing passport will be credited to his new one.