UNSCIENTIFIC AND ONEROUS

Jun 06, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The last time I checked, I still had my birth certificate issued in the then British Guiana, now independent Guyana. Why should this document now be invalidated for the purposes when applying for the first time for a machine readable Guyana passport?
At present once you are applying for a new passport you have to apply for the machine readable version. Once you are applying for a renewal of your non machine readable passport, you are required to apply for a new machine readable passport. In other words, only machine readable passports are now being issued or renewed.
A new directive is now in place. If you are applying for a passport for the first time, you need a birth certificate issued within six months of your application.
Even the United States Embassy does not require a birth certificate issued within six months.  It will take a birth certificate issued within a year.
The need for an updated birth certificate by the United States when considering visa applications became necessary because of the various schemes that are used by Guyanese to try to get to that country.
Given the suspicion of possible fraudulent documents including birth certificates, the US had some time ago demanded that birth certificates be recently issued when applying.
The issuing office for local passports now is taking this a step further and a step far too much by asking that for first time applicants for passports, the birth certificate must have been issued no later than six months. This is onerous requirement.
Anyone familiar with the process of being granted a birth certificate will indicate that it takes some time for applications for new birth certificates to be issued. This will cause a great deal of frustration for applicants if they have to apply for new birth certificates because it may take months from the time they apply to when the document is issued. This obviously delays the application for a new passport.
This new requirement also makes it impossible for persons who need to travel on short notice and who do not have a passport to apply for a new one. It is impossible for anyone to obtain through legitimate channels, a birth certificate within one month and therefore if there is a need for someone to travel urgently and that person does not have a passport, then that person cannot be issued a new one because he or she will be unable to comply with the new requirement concerning the birth certificate.
One has to question the basis of this new requirement.  Has any survey been conducted by the authorities to determine the percentage of applicants likely to produce fake birth certificates when applying for passports?
How many persons were charged recently with producing fake birth certificates to the immigration authorities? Not many such cases have reached the news and therefore it is reasonable to assume that there is no scientific basis for demanding a birth certificate issued within the last six months.
I have no doubt that there may be a few cases in which forged birth certificates may have been produced. But I would venture to say that ninety- nine per cent of those applying for passports have produced legitimate birth certificates. In order to verify this fact, the immigration authorities may take a sample of recently issued passports and verify the authenticity of the birth certificates.
From this they would be able to scientifically estimate the degree of fake birth certificates in the system. It is however onerous for the authorities to penalize the large numbers of applicants for new passports simply because of the actions of a few dishonest individuals.
If the passport authorities feel that forged or fake birth certificates are being produced, they should have a system to identify high risk cases for such fraud and to bring those responsible to justice. This would serve as an effective deterrent to fraud in the application process of passports.
But to ask everyone applying for a new passport to produce a birth certificate issued within the past six months is extremely unscientific and onerous.
In this the computer age, we have to do better than that. We have to have improved ways of doing things, rather than placing bureaucratic hurdles and burdensome requirements on the public.
What is needed is for the passport office to have digital access to the registers of births and deaths. With this access they can with the click of a mouse verify the particulars of birth certificates produced to them. But they do not even need to do this for every applicant they can do this using a system of random sampling.
And if the records of births and deaths are not yet digitized, then the passport office can take a sample of applicants and ask for authentication of the birth certificates produced.
But to ask every applicant to do this is unscientific.

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