The United Kingdom has just released its new passport — the first update to the identification and travel document in five years — and one that Mark Thompson, the director general of Her Majesty’s Passport Office, said is the most secure passport that the nation has ever produced. “We think it is pretty damn good,” he said.

The passport, which will be rolled out starting in December, has a number of new security features, including special inks, 3D watermarks and a number of features that can only be seen under infrared or ultraviolet light. The passport office has highlighted a number of those new security measures, but also warned would-be counterfeiters or criminals that there are still some tricks hidden between its maroon cover. “Many of these features are top secret to prevent criminals from knowing all of the security details used in the passport,” the office said, crossing its manly arms across its chest.

Some of the features that the passport office has disclosed include:

• A personal details page that is attached to the back cover and made of a continuous sheet of paper. It has been designed “to cause irreparable damage” if anyone attempts to tamper with it, rendering the passport invalid. That page also features “an array of holographic devices,” which makes it sound a little like a side stage at Coachella.
• The third page features a second image of the passport holder, which has been constructed from the letters of the person’s last name and the numbers of his or her birthdate.
• So many special inks! There are printed graphics that can only be seen when the passport is tilted in a specific direction, infrared inks that disappear under infrared light and invisible inks that are only visible with UV light. The passport also uses Intaglio printing techniques and Gemini ink, which glows in two colors under UV light but appears as as one color in the daylight.
• A 3D watermark of William Shakespeare on every page, as well as a 3D image of the Gipsy Moth IV boat and the “four floral motifs” that represent the countries of the United Kingdom.

The passport has already created its share of controversy, because of the individuals chosen — or, more accurately, not chosen — to represent its “Creative United Kingdom” theme. There are seven men whose portraits are included on its 34 pages, but only two women (and one of those women, mathematician Ada Lovelace, has to share her page with computer inventor Charles Babbage). When asked why there were so few women, and no cultural figures like Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf, Thompson said:

“Whenever we do these things there’s someone who wants their favorite rock band or icon in the book. We have 16 pages, a very finite space. We like to feel we have got a good representative view celebrating some of the icons of the UK, including Shakespeare, John Constable and folks like that, and of course [architect] Elisabeth Scott.”

So, um, how ’bout those watermarks?


https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/473415/6_1368_HMPO_New_magazine_WEB.pdf