Reply to: Birth Certificate

[darmstadt]

My passport runs out this year as well for the second time while living here and all I did was send the old one to the consulate in Dusseldorf with some wonga, waited a few weeks and a new one came back with the old one which had the corner cut off. Funnily enough while searching through my cellar I find one of those 1 year jobbies which was valid for when I moved here so I actually had 2 passports at the time. I believe there was a strike on at the passport office (strange that) so bought one over the counter at the post office just in case.

[SizeZero]

It is easy to get your (or anyone elses) Birth Certificate; you'll find family-tree-hunters at every registrars office when you visit. You might want to pay extra for it to be apostilised if you live abroad.

Anyone who hasn't had a 10 year British Passport before now needs to go for an interview as part of the application process (happened to my mother-in-law, late last year). The purpose is to 'answer questions that someone trying to gain your ID fraudulently wouldn't know the answer to.'

So whenever you talk about HMRC wanting the shirt off your back, the government already know what size it is

[lilelvis2000]

When I went to obtain my new passport from the High Comission in Canada in 2003 , I took the old one with me - which had long ago expired in 1980ish. I no longer looked like the photos. To my surpise the smiley woman behind the glass accepted the passport as proof of my identity and three weeks later I had my new British Passport. My wife is rather suspicious.

[Gonzo]

So the passport office doesn't phone up the solicitor or doctor you've got your photo authenticated by then?

Mrs Gonzo was born overseas, so she has applied for citizenship and a passport while she has been over here and never were any of the referees that she had to supply for these contacted.

[Lucifer Box]

So the passport office doesn't phone up the solicitor or doctor you've got your photo authenticated by then?

Not in my experience, no. My neighbour (bank manager) authenticated mine, Mrs Lucifer's, Lucifer Major's and Lucifer Minor's and was never contacted.

I'm sure you could authenticate it yourself and get away with it 99 times out of a 100.

[PAH]

girlfriend authorised a passport for a nighbour(as director of now defunct company).

they wrote back asking lots of silly questions.

gf will write to them tomorrow.

Careful, that's how IR35 investigations start. They like to try to and catch you off-guard then slowly focus in on what they're really after.

For that reason I ignore the milkman when he asks if I want gold top instead of silver. He'll have to get up earlier than that to catch me out about offshore investments.

[BrilloPad]

girlfriend authorised a passport for a nighbour(as director of now defunct company).

they wrote back asking lots of silly questions.

gf will write to them tomorrow.

[Ardesco]

So the passport office doesn't phone up the solicitor or doctor you've got your photo authenticated by then?

They never have for my passport (I have a mate who is a doctor and signs things like this for me). The only thing he has ever been asked to verify was my security clearance when I joined the OTC.

[PAH]

So the passport office doesn't phone up the solicitor or doctor you've got your photo authenticated by then?

No. We just expect them to, hence they think they don't need to because we won't test the system.

[KathyWoolfe]

Have you heard of the concept of lying? If you are using a fake birth cert to obtain a passport, you might falsify the photo too.

So the passport office doesn't phone up the solicitor or doctor you've got your photo authenticated by then?

[Lucifer Box]

Have you heard of the concept of lying? If you are using a fake birth cert to obtain a passport, you might falsify the photo too.

Shhhh, the criminal fraternity might not have thought of that.

[DimPrawn]

I thought that for a passport you also have to have a photo of you verified by a professional (ie doctor, solicitor etc) who has known you for at least 2 years?

Have you heard of the concept of lying? If you are using a fake birth cert to obtain a passport, you might falsify the photo too.

[KathyWoolfe]

This is, of course, the basis of the plot of Day of the Jackal (pub 1972) and is still the case today.

There was a programme on last year about it. The reporting journo asked for a copy of Frederick Forsyth's birth certificate from the appropriate registrar, got it, and used it to obtain a UK passport in the name of Frederick Forsyth. They then confronted the man himself over dinner with a friend in a restaurant Watchdog style as if it was all his fault for highlighting the loophole in the first place. He was rather bemused and somewhat annoyed, unsurprisingly.

I thought that for a passport you also have to have a photo of you verified by a professional (ie doctor, solicitor etc) who has known you for at least 2 years?

[PAH]

Explains why there's so many numpties with my name on FaceBook, yet I've never met anyone with even the same surname (outside my family!) in real life.

Though I did once get mistaken for the ex-husband of some bint that visited the office I was contracting at. She even came over asking what I was doing there. Apparently I was a spitting image, which took me back a bit. I never even asked if she fancied a 'trip down memory lane' I was so stunned.

Maybe one day I'll wake up all Jason Bourne style, or my parents have yet to tell me about my long lost twin brother, who also seems to have the same lack of luck with his women.

[Lucifer Box]

Frederick Forsyth can tell you all about it

This is, of course, the basis of the plot of Day of the Jackal (pub 1972) and is still the case today.

There was a programme on last year about it. The reporting journo asked for a copy of Frederick Forsyth's birth certificate from the appropriate registrar, got it, and used it to obtain a UK passport in the name of Frederick Forsyth. They then confronted the man himself over dinner with a friend in a restaurant Watchdog style as if it was all his fault for highlighting the loophole in the first place. He was rather bemused and somewhat annoyed, unsurprisingly.