Emergency passport system to go ahead

Faster issue and more secure documents are key drivers

The documents allow those with lost passports to travel

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is introducing a new system that will issue more secure emergency travel documents.

The system – which will be rolled out from the second half of this year – will allow officials at 200 overseas stations to issue the documents within a matter of hours.

Currently the FCO issues 10,000 such documents a year to people who have lost their passports, but the process is likely to take weeks rather than days and the documents are not as secure as the FCO would like.

"These new documents will be much more difficult to fake and quicker to issue," said an FCO spokesman.

And rationalisation of overseas passport operations means that under a business-as-usual scenario the issue of emergency documents is likely to take even longer in the future.

The system is based on software from WorldReach and will be implemented by Logica.