Identity and Passport Service
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The Identity and Passport Service is an Executive Agency of the Home Office in the United Kingdom which became operational on 1 April 2006 after the passing of the Identity Cards Act 2006.
It unites the former United Kingdom Passport Service and the Home Office Identity Cards Programme.
Its function is to provide passport services and in the future, when the National Identity Scheme becomes operational, ID cards for everyone resident in the UK, and to establish and update the associated database - the National Identity Register.
The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will launch 'Authentication by Interview' (AbI) in March 2007 which will initially interview all first time adult applicants in order to confirm the applicant's identity. To facilitate this new program they will be opening 69 interview offices around the country. Eventually interviews may be compulsory for all adult passport applicants. IPS have announced the towns and cities where these 69 offices are to be located, and some of the locations have been acquired.
On 1st April 2008, the General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO) became a subsidiary of IPS. The decision to make the transfer of GRO to IPS was finalised following the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review. As such IPS and the Home Office is the natural home for GRO. The move follows changes to make Office of National Statistics more independent of Government, which means ONS will no longer be responsible for the registration role it currently holds.
There has been a lot of controversy over the Authentification by Interview Office throughout the UK. 66 of these offices are now open with the rest to be fully operational by the end of 2008.
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