A friend who has one of the new passports was going on holiday recently. He passed through passport control and into the departure lounge. An announcement was made requesting him to make himself known to security. Four years ago he had lived abroad , in an EU country, and he was fined for drinking in a public place. Being the worse for wear he had no recollection of the event and had not paid the fine but had obviously given all the correct details . The security at the airport, now four years later, informed him that they could prevent him from travelling if he didn`t cough up. The £75 pounds was paid and he went on his way.
Now you might say that quite rightly so, but knowing him he is not the type to think that he had gotten away with it, he genuinely had no recollection of being fined. Airport security even had a picture of him.
So was this the purpose of the new style passport, to police Europe or maybe even further afield.
I think this story may have got blurred in the telling. Are you saying he was stopped at a UK airport and told to pay £75 in Sterling before he could leave the UK ? I think what is more likely is that he was stopped leaving the country where the offence happened (wouldn't be Spain by any chance?) and had to pay the equivalent of £75. The reason I say this is that the Spanish are using the API data from airline records (not passports) to check outstanding issues and not just their terrorist watch list.
The new style passports don't contain any extra info if issued as a simple renewal (I know, I got one a couple of weeks ago and all I sent for it was a new photo). But they have been introduced at the same time as the API rules, people with old passports have been stopped as well.
The new style passports don't contain any extra info if issued as a simple renewal (I know, I got one a couple of weeks ago and all I sent for it was a new photo). But they have been introduced at the same time as the API rules, people with old passports have been stopped as well.
I got called to the gate agent for my flight to PHL a month ago, because although the border control lady scanned my passport to let me through to the upstairs security control point in LHR terminal 5, it didn't transfer the information that I was actually there in the terminal awaiting my connecting flight having arrived from Basel earlier that morning, and I got called to check that I really was there in person and waiting to board the flight!!
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