Do you have passport?

I am a Filipina and have myself a Philippines passport i can use to travel everywhere but my plan was to travel to Norway but am still waiting for my fiancee.

[edit] Standards The front cover of passports bears the name of the issuing country, and often its coat of arms or other complex symbol. Here, this French passport bears, in golden imprint, Union européenne (European Union), République française (French Republic) and the emblem of the Republic (fasces). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This image has an uncertain copyright status and is pending deletion. You can comment on the removal. [edit] Technical characteristics Historically there were no agreed standards for passports because they were not generally required for international travel until the First World War. After the war the League of Nations Paris Conference on Passports & Customs Formalities and Through Tickets (1920) agreed the first set of standards that were expected of all passports issued by members of the League. The establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in 1947 with 188 contracting states saw the responsibility for setting passport standards fall to that authority. Passports now have a standardised format. They begin with a cover identifying the issuing country, then have a title page also naming the country. This is usually followed by pages giving information about the bearer and the issuing authority, (although some European Union member state passports provide this information on the inside back cover of the document). Then, a number of blank pages are given for foreign countries to affix visas, or stamp the passport on entrance or exit. Passports are provided with a serial number by the issuing authority. It is usual for a passport to have a note (usually near the front of the booklet) requesting and requiring help for its holder. For example, the note in an Israeli passport states: The Minister of the Interior of the State of Israel hereby requests all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer of this passport to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him such assistance and protection as may be necessary. Some passports include the note bilingually, for example, New Zealand passports has the note in English: The Governor General in the Realm of New Zealand requests in the Name of Her Majesty The Queen all whom it may concern to allow the holder to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful assistance and protection. and in Maori: He tono tenei na te Kawana-Tianara O te Whenua o Aotearoa i raro i te Ingoa o Kuini Erihapeti ki te hunga e tika ana kia kaua e akutotia, e whakakopekatia te tangata mau i te uruwhenua nei i ana haere, a, i te wa e hiahiatia ai me awhina, me manaaki. (Note examples from some other countries' passports can be found in their Wikipedia articles; for example, see the U.S. passport note. For the British passport note, see "The British Monarch" below.) Passports used to carry information (family name, given names, date of birth, place of birth, etc.) only in textual form. In recent years, however, passports issued by many countries have become more complex. Machine-readable passports are standardized world-wide standard by the ICAO [2]. They bear a zone where some of the information otherwise written in textual form is written as strings of alphanumeric characters, printed in a manner suitable for optical character recognition. This enables border controllers and other law enforcement agents to process such passports quickly, without having to input the information manually into a computer. Biometric passports with RFID chips will carry supplemental information about the bearer, in a digitised form. These passports have already been introduced many years ago in Malaysia and more recently in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, the Republic of Ireland and Poland. These new passports were primarily introduced to prevent identity fraud. When technology improves, the embedded chips may also allow rapid clearance through immigration controls with quicker confirmation of identity. Facial Maps are popular for use in Biometric passports as the data (the distances between key facial features) can be gathered from the holder's passport photo without any other information. The irony is that although many countries now have biometric passports very few have introduced the equipment to read them at ports of entry and in the absence of an international standard it is not currently possible for one country to read the biometric information of another one. [edit] Languages In 1920 the International Conference on Passports, Customs Formalities and Through Tickets mandated that passports be issued in French and at least one other language. Now, many countries issue passports in English and the language of the issuing country. Belgium allows its citizens to choose which of its three official languages (Dutch, French, or German) should appear first in the individual's passport. The face page of the Hungarian passports ("Útlevél" in Hungarian, lit. "Roadletter") is in Hungarian only, though on the inside there is a second, Hungarian-English bilingual page mentioning "Passport" as well. The personal information page offers Hungarian, English and French explanation for the details. An additional page including the explanations in English, French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish and Arabic has been added in recent years. Passports issued by European Union member states bear all of the official languages of the European Union. These are not printed in each location, however. A number of languages (2 or 3) will be printed in the relevant point, followed by a number, which is used as a reference for a page on the passport dedicated to translations into all the remaining languages. United States passports, once issued in English and French only, are now issued in English, French, and Spanish since the second Clinton administration, due to the fact that they are used in Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico. Soviet internal passports were only printed in Russian and the language of Republic of the USSR, foreign passports were printed bilingual Russian and English, though they used French transliteration for names. The same situation exists in the present-day Russia except that in the newest version of the passports, names are no-longer transliterated according to the French method. [edit] Common designs The member states of the European Union are perhaps the best-known countries to have a common format for their passports. European Union (EU) member state passports have standardised layouts and designs, although the photo page can be at the front or in the back of the booklet and small differences in design indicate which member state is the issuer. Ordinary EU member state passports are burgundy-red, with the words "European Union" written in the national language or languages (e.g. Dutch, French, Finnish, Maltese) on the front, below which is the official name of the country, the national seal, and the word for "passport", in the respective language(s), can be found at the bottom. Malta was the first country of the new EU states from Central Europe and the Mediterranean to issue EU format passports. Estonia and Slovakia began issuing EU format passports in 2005. Slovenia and Poland started issuing biometric EU format passports in 2006. Others such as Latvia and Cyprus are likely to follow in the coming years. In Central America, the members of the CA-4 Treaty (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have adopted a common design passport also called the Central American Passport. Although the design has been in use by Nicaragua and El Salvador since the mid-1990's, it will be the norm for the CA-4 area effective January 2006. The main features are its navy blue cover with the words "América Central" and a map of Central America with the territory of the issuing country highlighted in gold. This effectively replaces the national seals of the different countries with one single element, the map. At the bottom of the cover, the name of the issuing country and the passport type. As of 2006, the Nicaraguan passport (which will be used as the model for the other three countries) is issued in Spanish, French and English. It also has 89 security features, including bidimensional barcodes, holograms and watermarks, ranking it as one of the most secure passport models in the world. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) recently began issuing passports to a common design, featuring CARICOM's symbol along with the national seal and official name of the member state in its official languages (i.e. English, French, Dutch). The first member state to issue CARICOM passports was Suriname, and currently four other member states use the common design: St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda. These five countries are to be followed by the other countries in CARICOM. The declaration adopted in Cusco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations signalled an intent to establish a common passport design, but this appears to be a long way away. Already, some member states of regional sub-groupings such as Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations issue passports that bear their official name and seal along with the name of their regional grouping. Examples include Paraguay and Ecuador. Member states of the Andean Community of Nations have agreed to phase in new Andean passports bearing the official name of the regional body in Spanish by January 2005, although previously issued national passports will be valid until their expiry date. [edit] Government restrictions and special cases Although most countries recognise the passports of most other countries, there are a number of exceptions. Generally these exceptions are due to circumstances where one country does not recognise another territory's administration as a sovereign

hmm I have a Passport.......me an INDIAN........dont need dual citizenship....... i want to love only one country (MY INDIA) till I die!!!!!!

Types Most citizens are issued with ordinary passports for regular travel. Diplomatic personnel are issued Diplomatic Passports which identify them as diplomatic representatives of their home country, or can be issued for any state employees who serve on long-term (resident) duty, and in other cases official passport holders may be granted visa-free entry, while normal passport holders are required to get a visa. Alien's passports are documents issued by some countries to non-citizen residents. A collective passport may be issued, for example, for a school trip. All children on the trip would be covered by the group passport for the duration of the trip. A lookalike passport may be issued by countries with complex nationality laws. In the United Kingdom, as a result of its colonial heritage, and domestic constitution has developed different classes of citizenship. Some passports are simply travel documents which offer no right of abode, while others indicate full right of residence. Meanwhile, not all UK citizens are automatically European Union citizens, and are issued with passports which carry no EU endorsements. Multiple passport regimes can operate in one country. The main example of this is China, where the One country, two systems model has resulted in Hong Kong and Macao having their own passports and immigration regulations. Numbers of countries and territories offering visa-free entries to these three type of passports vary. Internal passports have been issued by some countries, as a means of controlling the movement of the population. Examples include the Soviet internal passport system and the hukou residency registration system used in the People's Republic of China.

History One of the earliest references to passports was made in about 450 B.C. Nehemiah, an official serving King Artaxerxes of ancient Persia, asked permission to travel to Judah. The King agreed and gave Nehemiah a letter "to the governors of the province beyond the river" requesting safe passage for him as he travelled through their lands The term 'passport' most probably originates not from sea ports, but from medieval documents required to pass through the gate ('porte') of city walls. In medieval Europe such documents could be issued to any traveller by local authorities and generally contained a list of towns and cities through which the holder was permitted to pass. This system continued in France, for example, until the 1860s. During this time passports were often not required for travel to seaports, which were considered open trading points, but were required to travel from them to inland cities. Early passports often, but not always, contained a physical description of the holder, with photographs being added only in the early decades of the 20th century. Before the First World War, passports were not widely used for international travel, and in most areas few people had one. Crossing a border was usually very easy, and no supporting documentation or declarations were required. They were, however, commonly used for travel within a handful of states such as the Ottoman Empire and tsarist Russia, where they were commonly held document. During the war European governments suddenly had an interest in preventing people with useful skills or potential manpower from leaving, and keeping out spies or other security threats, so passports were demanded at border crossings. After the war the new controls were not removed and became standard procedure, although not without controversy. British tourists of the 1920s complained about the new annoyances, and especially about the attached photographs and physical descriptions, which led to a "nasty dehumanization" in the words of one traveller.[1] Following the world wars, the League of Nations (International Conference on Passports, Customs Formalities and Through Tickets, 1920), and later the United Nations and the ICAO, issued standardisation guidelines on the layout and features of passports. These guidelines have largely shaped the modern passport. In recent years there has been a movement to introduce biometric information to passports to improve identity security. It is at present questionable whether such technology is sufficiently developed and robust for this task. The U.S., for example, has twice delayed the introduction of this technology due to poor reliability results.

A passport is a travel document issued by a national government that usually identifies the bearer as a national of the issuing state and requests that the bearer be permitted to enter and pass through other countries. Passports are connected with the right of legal protection abroad and the right to enter one's country of nationality. Passports usually contain the holder's photograph, signature, date of birth, nationality, and sometimes other means of individual identification. Many countries are in the process of developing biometric properties for their passports in order to further confirm that the person presenting the passport is the legitimate holder.

I hold a valid Indian Passport. I'm an Indian by birth and I am trying to get a dual citizenship of Canada or Australia.

I don't have a passport because I have never had the need for one. There are a lot of people with dual citizenship but I do not believe in it. I think a person can only have real loyalty to one country, not two, and so they should make the choice which one that is to be. The country of birth or the country where they choose to live their life.