Biometric passport insanity
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
There’s been a fair bit of criticism about how well the new “biometric” passports that the US insists on work, and which the European Union has decided to implement as well but that’s been ignored by various governments and parliaments, and they’re with us now.
While I expected that I would pay more and be more inconvenienced for the sake of unproven security improvements, I didn’t see just how much pain was coming my way.
Now I know. My passport can only be renewed at an embassy. In my case, and for thousands of others with same nationality as me (Swedish), that means travelling to Canberra, Australia. That’s about a grand in airfares, plus food and lodging and transport in Canberra which is thousands of kilometres away from where I live, in New Zealand.
How do you get to Australia then, if you don’t have a passport? The consulate here can issue a provisional passport that’s valid for seven months. That’ll cost a cool $260, and of course, I’ll need to transfer the returning resident visa to it which will cost $140.
Then I’ll have to pay $110 for the new Swedish passport, plus $140 for another returning resident visa for it. In other words, I’m looking at around two grand just to get a basic travel document that I thought was my right to have without insane hoop-jumping.
I complained to the Royal Swedish Embassy in Canberra, and got a response saying “we don’t make the rules here” and that I should direct my kvetching to the Riksdagen, or the Swedish parliament. Oh yes, that’ll solve the problem double-quick. The embassy also said there won’t be funding and staff available for a biometric photo station in New Zealand in the near future. Bah.
Believe it or not, it could be worse. Swedish passport holders have the option to renew passports at embassies overseas; Austrian citizens can’t apparently do so. They have to go to Austria to pick up passports. Australia is thinking of going down the same route, that is, passports can only be issued in Australia. No idea what NZ is planning to do, but with 600,000 plus of its citizens living overseas, I hope they won’t make passports issuable in Aotearoa only.
November 28th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Great post! Some of the barriers and bureaucracies implemented by certain govts are ridiculous! The Austrian passport issuing example is probably at the extreme end. But your experience with Swedish authorities sounds painful :/