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Australians may soon be able to travel without passports
In a world first move, Australia is looking to trial passport-less travel. Virtual passports or ‘cloud passports’ may soon allow Australians to breeze through international airports without having to deal with the sometime mindless enquiries of immigration officials over their traditional passports.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced earlier this week that the idea of ‘passport – less’ travel was presented to and well received by a number of international leaders as part of the Australia’s InnovationXchange project.
A 'cloud passport' would work by storing the identity and biometric data of holders online so it could be checked digitally, thus eliminating the need to carry a physical copy.
One obvious benefit would mean Australians no longer would need to worry about losing or having their passports stolen. Statistics from the department of foreign affairs and trade (DFAT) show 38,718 Australian passports were reported lost or stolen in 2014-15.
The idea of document-free travel emerged from the InnovationXchange project. The project encourages DFAT employees to contribute creative ideas using their experience and expertise on the job. The $140 million InnovationXchange project was launched in May in collaboration with American publisher and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Ms Bishop said the ideas emerging from the projects were 'innovative, challenged the status quo and had the potential to transform the way we do business globally.
“We have a wealth of talent within DFAT and I am delighted to hear these innovative and creative ideas. I hope this concept takes off across the public sector allowing the best ideas to be trialled, adopted and scaled up” said Ms Bishop.
Australia implemented 'e-passports' in 2005, which feature an embedded chip storing travellers digitised photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and the passport expiry date.
Ms Bishop is confident the Australian initiative of cloud passports ‘will go global’. The initial trial for document-free travel is expected to be for travel between Australia and New Zealand.
Comments
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Thursday, 05 November 2015You said you had to put your passport through the scanner yesterday, so it DID make a difference that you had a passport. Because if you didn't have a passport yesterday, you couldn't have scanned it.
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Thursday, 05 November 2015
If an Australian needs to get a visa before travelling, how can this passport-less system work?
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Friday, 06 November 2015
How could you prove identity in countries that require a copy of your passport for internal travel on boats and planes? What ID will you provide the officials outside the airport, police and other enforcement officers to prove who you are to avoid detention?
Poorer countries do not have electronic access to the system outside limited offices. -
Sunday, 08 November 2015
Many countries require passport when booking internal travel for boats/ships and plane. When dealing with authorities overseas for even the simplest matter with say police on the street, you need to provide identification and most countries require your passport for this. The idea sounds great but implementing it without causing Australians grief while overseas, borders on the impossible
Immigration blog
Its all automatic already.
I went through the customs at Sydney Airport yesterday afternoon, put in my passport into a scanner, the machine printed out a ticket, then proceed to the check point, insert the ticket into another machine for facial matching, that is it. It seem have no difference whether I have a physical passport or not.
Not sure if all other country will accept the move.