Apply online for a passport - at last

The UK Passport Service (UKPS) is to roll out a new online electronic passport application (EPA), due to go live by September 2004.

The system will check data online and take payment details, before passing it onto the Government Payments Engine, built by the Office of the eEnvoy, and to a new back office system to handle electronic applications, built by Siemens Business Services.

The UKPS plans to begin EPA development in early 2003, and is looking for a supplier to develop the web-based front end.

A Home Office spokeswoman says the new system will be far more integrated than the previous system, which treats submissions like paper applications.

'What we are envisioning is electronically submitting the application, but you will have to send other documents separately,' she said.

EPA will allow users to print a summary form from their home computer, which they sign and return to UKPS with additional documents.

The agency does have an existing, but basic, web-based system, which it describes as an online passport pre-application site. The application form can be completed online but has to be printed out and returned to the applicant's address, and is then signed and returned with documents and payments.

Longer term, the UKPS plans to introduce passport smart cards (Computing, 21 February). The cards are due by 2006, and will include digitally captured biometrics such as iris scans or fingerprints. Scanning would take place at Post Offices or other centres.

The UKPS and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency are also working together on plans for a single database for identifying UK citizens. A working group to explore the issue was due to report its findings by October, but this now forms part of the government's wider consultation on identity cards, due in the new year.