Anti-fraud drive prompts passport price hike

Friday, 18 July 2003 12:00 AM

The price of a British passport is set to go up by nearly a third from October this year.

A standard adult passport will increase from £33 to £42, while the price of a child's passport will go up from £19 to £25. And the cost of amending your details will nearly double as applicants will have to pay the full price of a new ten-year passport.

At least half of the additional revenue for the UK Passport Service, which is a non-profit-making organisation, will pay for the new measures that are being introduced to fight fraud.

There will be new fraud investigation units in passport offices around the country; improved training for staff; and better resources for identity checks, including a new database and exhaustive checking of previous applications.

On top of this the UKPS is looking to introduce biometric standards such as iris identification and fingerprints, which could be on UK passports by 2007.

The UKPS has claimed that the price hike does not actually cover than the full scale of its future costs because it has managed to make savings of £10m, keeping the increase down.

Other rising costs include improvements to customer service, particularly with regard to online applications and the need to meet an obligation to repay previously accrued deficits to HM Treasury by October 2004, currently amounting to £26m.

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