Passport services

Program 2.2

Overview

The department continued to provide Australians with a secure, efficient and responsive passport service, in line with the Client Service Charter of the Australian Passport Office (APO). We issued 1.83 million passports, most of them the new generation P-series document which was released in June 2014.

The department helped strengthen national security through its leadership in cross-agency efforts to improve the integrity of identity management and prevent identity fraud.

A review of the passports legislation culminated in the introduction into Parliament of the Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill in June 2015.

We hosted the annual Five Nations Conference on passports in Melbourne in April 2015. The conference saw frank and productive discussions on efforts to address foreign terrorist fighters, border control, combatting fraud and identity crime, forecasting demand and resource modelling.

Passport production

We issued 1,835,201 passports¹ in 2014–15, 1.78 per cent more than the previous year, and a record annual high. This increase was largely driven by higher demand for children’s passports, with only a small rise recorded in adult applications and renewals. Strong demand for passports coincided with an intake of new staff who needed training and time to become fully operational. This accounted for a lower figure than in previous years—90.9 per cent—of routine applications that were issued within the service standard of 10 working days.

Priority service was requested in 11.7 per cent of applications. We issued 214,238 priority passports, meeting the processing standard of two working days in 98.7 per cent of cases.

Some 95.5 per cent of all passport applications were lodged in Australia. Australia Post conducted 95.6 per cent of interviews of clients lodging applications in Australia at more than 1600 accredited outlets. The remainder were conducted at the nine passport offices across Australia.

More than 100 Australian diplomatic missions and consulates processed 93,258 passport applications and issued 8171 emergency passports to Australians overseas.

The fee for an ordinary passport increased from $244 to $250 on 1 January 2015. This was in accordance with the Australian Passports (Application Fees) Act 2005 which provides for annual passport fee increases in line with the consumer price index.

In 2014–15, 37.8 per cent of clients used the electronic passport application forms available at passports.gov.au, compared with 32.9 per cent the previous year. We continued to improve the passports website incrementally and used outreach initiatives to encourage client take-up of online services.

The Australian Passport Information Service (APIS) provided a telephone helpline to clients and arranged interviews with passport offices in Australia on our behalf. APIS handled 1,738,770 enquiries, a decrease of 4.5 per cent over the previous year.

In 2014–15, 38,718 passports were registered as lost or stolen, compared with 38,689 the previous year. As a percentage of total passports on issue, this is consistent with the annual rate in recent years.

A small number of passports—an average of six per month—were lost in the mail after dispatch from our production centres. This was a significant reduction compared with previous years, reflecting our work with Australia Post to minimise non-delivery.

During the year, the department issued, free of charge, 58 passports to replace those lost, damaged or destroyed as a result of crises and disasters, including bushfires in Victoria and storms and floods in New South Wales.

Client service

Two client surveys showed that satisfaction with the department’s passport services and processes remains high. Clients who reported a positive experience in their dealings with us cited ‘good service and staff’ and ‘an efficient and straightforward process’ as reasons for their satisfaction. Those who reported a negative experience attributed this to ‘issues with form completion and documentation requirements’, ‘application process too complex or slow’ and ‘service and staff issues’. We will use the feedback to help us improve published information about passports and to develop more user-friendly application forms.

We responded to 78 legislative review requests (passport-related complaints), down from 84 complaints received last year. Of these, 58 were for an internal review of a passport decision and 20 related to investigations by the Commonwealth Ombudsman or claims under the Government’s scheme for Compensation for Detriment caused by Defective Administration. (See also Appendix 7.) The ombudsman has not issued any formal reports or section 12(4) notices to the department in relation to any complaint made by individuals.

We are implementing several suggestions made by the ombudsman in relation to child passport applications where all persons with parental responsibility do not provide consent.

Passport security

The new P-series passport was smoothly rolled out in 2014–15. Its sophisticated security features, which further enhanced the trademark properties of the Australian ePassport, were well received by frontline border officials.

We began work on the next generation of travel documents, the R-series, which will reconceptualise all aspects of Australian passport design and functionality.

The department advanced the National Identity Security Strategy through broader use of the Document Verification Service; for example, to validate Change of Name certificates used by passport clients.

We played a leading role in the national effort to improve the integrity of facial biometric-based systems, particularly the development of strategies to improve human performance in face matching tasks, such as at border passport checks. We collaborated with the Defence Science and Technology Group and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) on cutting edge research on facial biometrics. Our work with UNSW was featured on ABC Television’s science program, Catalyst, in February 2015, attracting wide domestic and international interest. We continued to work with partners at home and abroad to develop standards for facial comparison competencies and to establish facial examination as a recognised forensic science.

We finalised changes to the Australian Passports Determination 2005 to boost membership of the APEC Regional Movement Alert System. We worked with the International Civil Aviation Organization to promote continuous improvement in traveller security through the development of international standards for travel documents and capacity building. We also participated actively in International Organization for Standardization technical working groups on biometrics and passport chip technology.

Passport fraud detection and prevention, and national security issues

The department began 151 investigations into allegations of passport fraud including identity fraud, application fraud and improper use or possession of Australian passports. We referred 29 matters to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. Passport fraud was proven in 18 cases prosecuted during the year.

The department continued to focus on high-risk identity fraud cases, further developing its capacity to resolve complex identity cases with facial recognition expertise, facial matching technologies and data analytics.

We built on our ability to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute fraud under the Australian Passports Act 2005 by working closely with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Our work in partnership with the Australian Crime Commission, the Fraud and Anti-corruption Centre and the National Border Targeting Centre led to the disruption of serious and organised criminal activity. We also joined the National Disruption Group, further enhancing our ability to strengthen national security.

The introduction of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Act 2014 engendered changes to the Australian Passports Act 2005 and the Foreign Passports (Law Enforcement and Security) Act 2005 which enable the Foreign Minister to take temporary action in relation to Australian and foreign travel documents. Specifically, the new provisions allow the Director-General of Security to request the Foreign Minister to suspend an Australian travel document for 14 days and/or to order the surrender of a foreign travel document for 14 days on security grounds. These changes highlighted the key role of the Australian passport in assisting to protect our national security. The Minister suspended nine passports in 2014–15.

The Foreign Minister cancelled 114 passports under the Australian Passports Act 2005. This 48 per cent increase from the previous year was due largely to an increased number of requests from the relevant competent authority to cancel passports on national security grounds.

Legislative reform, technical and other innovations

Completion of the department’s review of Australian passports legislation culminated in the introduction into Parliament of the new Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill in June 2015. Key amendments provide for the issue of a travel document on the Minister’s initiative to facilitate a lawful requirement for a person to travel, closer alignment of the definition of ‘parental responsibility’ with that contained in the Family Law Act 1975, and the addition of a new offence to strengthen our capacity to respond to the fraudulent use of travel documents.

A revised delivery approach for the National Security—Improved Passport Integrity and Strengthened Issuance Systems (Passport Redevelopment Program) was implemented in 2014–15. This will enable progressive development and delivery of a new passport issuance system in 2015–16 and 2016–17.

As part of the support services offered by Intercountry Adoption Australia, we created a new position to manage passports aspects of international adoptions.

Outlook

Passport applications are expected to increase to slightly over 1.9 million in 2015–16.

We will introduce two key processing improvements, namely bulk scanning of applications and high volume printing of passports. A new passport application form designed to replace four existing forms will be released in early 2016 and the passports website will be redesigned to streamline and improve customer experience. The Australian Passports Determination 2005 and the Foreign Passports (Law Enforcement and Security) Determination 2005 will be amended and remade in accordance with their sunset date of 1 October 2015. We will implement the full suite of changes contained in the new passports legislation.

After jointly winning the department’s Ideas Challenge with a proposal for a ‘Cloud Passport’—a virtual passport for travel between Australia and New Zealand—we will develop this innovative concept in collaboration with passport and border agencies of the two countries. (See Ideas Challenge.)