Singapore passport
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Singapore passport is a travel document issued to the citizens of Singapore. It is issued by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore. Only Singapore citizens can apply for this passport. The passport is valid for all countries of the world, with visa-free access to the United States and the People's Republic of China mainland for short-duration visits,[1] compared with many passports which require visas for entry to these two jurisdictions.[2] [3]
The passport is a popular target for counterfeits, due largely to the relatively liberal visa requirements accorded to Singaporean travellers to destinations such as the United States, and the tendency for immigration to clear Singapore passport holders more quickly.[4] It thus adopted several measures to foil forgers, including utilizing digital photos and special ink since October 1999, and the Biometric passport from August 2006.
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[edit] Validity
The Singapore passport is valid for a period of five years for passports issued since April 1, 2005 and ten years for passports issued before April 1 2005. Before biometric passports were issued in August 2006, the passports for male citizens between 11 and 18 were only valid for two years, and had to be renewed or replaced every two years. Biometric passports cannot be modified due to the "write once" policy by ICAO. A new passport is valid for a total period of five years. For a passport that is being renewed with a validity of nine months or less, the new passport will have a validity of five years plus the remaining validity in the old passport. However, if a passport is being renewed with a validity of more than nine months, it will be valid for five years and nine months. [5] To travel overseas, a passport must be valid for at least six months for countries other than Malaysia, and two months for Malaysia.
[edit] Biometric passport
Since 15 August 2006, all newly-issued Singapore passports contain biometric features (BioPass). A major reason for this addition was to comply with the requirements for the US Visa Waiver Program.[6] The features also help to prevent forgery and minimize the abuse of Singapore passports. A biometric passport contains 64 pages unlike the machine readable passports which contains 96 pages. It costs S$80 for a passport, with a higher cost due to the special features encoded into the passport. There is a ten dollar rebate if one applies for the passport on the internet, by post or by the deposit box with applicants having to collect the passport personally.
The biometric passport is valid for 5 years for first time applicants, compared with 10 years for previously issued passports without biometric features before April 1 2005. Also, the new passport does not accept modifications such as extensions of validity, and the updating of photographs due to ICAO's "write once" policy.[7] In a break from long standing practice, the passport number is now unique to each passport, instead of being identical to the holder's NRIC number.[7] Children are no longer allowed to travel on their parents' passport.[8]
These changes have indirectly increased the cost of international travel, especially overland to Malaysia, giving rise to a certain amount of criticism from the public, especially in the Straits Times forum page.[citation needed]
The biometric passport project costs S$9.7 million.[9]
[edit] National Service issues
All males citizens are required to serve National Service. Previously, the Singapore government had a policy of limiting the passport validity of boys aged 11 and above, up to their enlistment. To travel, the boys had to apply to extend for 9 months extensions of the validity of their passports. Such extensions were added with a rubber stamp. The stated objective of such exit control measures is to deter NS-evasion, and to act as a "psychological reminder" of the NS obligations.
Since the new biometric passport does not permit such modifications, a decision was made by the Ministry of Defence to do away with limited-validity passports to avoid the inconvenience and costs imposed on families of the boys. The other exit control requirement, i.e. the need for exit permits, still stands. Exit permits are still required for overseas trips which last longer than three months.[10]
[edit] References
- ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Consular Information, China accessed 12 Nov 2006.
- ^ For the United States, all countries' passports except for the 27 countries in the Visa Waiver Program. State Department, Temporary Visitors to the U.S., accessed 12 Nov 2006.
- ^ For the People's Republic of China mainland, [1] [2], accessed 21 Nov 2006; [3], accessed 17 Nov 2006.
- ^ Zaihan Mohd Yusof, Serangoon Rd man asks undercover reporter: Psst, want to buy a passport?, The New Paper, 9 Jun 2004. Accessed 11 Nov 2006.
- ^ Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, Application for Singapore Passport, accessed 17 Dec 2006
- ^ U.S. State Department, Visa Waiver Program (VWP), accessed 10 Nov 2006.
- ^ a b Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore, Biopass FAQ, accessed 11 Nov 2006.
- ^ Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore, Deletion of Child's Particulars, accessed 11 Nov 2006.
- ^ Channel NewsAsia, Singapore's biometric passport project to cost S$9.7 million, accessed 3 Dec 2006.
- ^ MINDEF, Introduction of the Singapore Biometric Passport - Revisions To Exit Control Measures, 25 July 2006. Accessed 14 Nov 2006.
