Australian passport
Australian Passport is issues by The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, both in Australia and overseas. Australian passports are issued only to Australian citizens.
History of the Australian Passport
The words 'Australian Passport' replaced 'British Passport' on the cover of an Australian passport in 1949.
- the 'X' series passport issued in 1917 is one of the earliest passports. It was during World War I that monitoring and identifying those crossing international borders became critical to the security of Australia and its allies;
- the War Precautions Act 1914–15 required that all persons over 16 years of age, on leaving the Commonwealth, possess a passport;
- in 1949 two types of passport were issued:
1. B Series passports were issued (within Australia only) to British subjects who were not Australian citizens. 2. C Series passports were issued only to Australian citizens.
- before 1983, a married woman’s passport application had to be authorised by her husband;
- in 1984, Australian passports included machine readable lines and were the first to have a laminate built into the document;
- in 1986, the introduction of Single Identity passports meant children could no longer be included on their parent’s passport;
- until 1988, a woman could apply for and receive a passport in her married name, before she was actually married.
The Australian Biometric Passport (ePassport)
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has introduced the next generation of Australian passport Biometric 'ePassport' on 24 October 2005.
The ePassport is very similar to the previous Australian passport, differing only in having an embedded microchip in the centre page and a gold international ePassport symbol on the front cover.
The chip embedded in the centre pages stores your digitised photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and the passport expiry date. This is the same information that appears on the printed information page of every passport.
Facial recognition technology is being introduced to coincide with the release of the ePassport. This technology will be used to improve identity verification and reduce identity-related fraud.
The ePassport offers several important advantages over the previous Australian Passport. It:
- provides greater protection against fraudulent misuse and tampering
- reduces the risk of identity fraud.
- enhances the protection of Australia's border through speedy and secure verification of incoming Australian passport holders.