Minister of Public Security takes responsibility for unaccepted new passports

Answering the question about responsibility and measures which can remedy the situation, Minister Lam said that the Ministry of Public Security is the agency in charge of issuing new passports for citizens, meaning the Ministry takes responsibility for the issue and has already devised solutions.

Minister Lam affirmed that the issuance of new passports is done in accordance with the Immigration Law and the provisions of the law, adding that the new passport form also falls in line with international practices.

"Currently, many countries use this form, all contain no place of birth information. The passport we give is also accepted by most of the world's countries. Recently only Germany, the Czech Republic, and Spain did not accept it, but it has been already accepted by Spain," he stated.

Recently, passports issued by several countries with similar issues have also been under consideration by some nations, he went on to say.

Lam explained that many countries can "cause difficulties" with new forms of passport for practical reasons. They also want to find out about the origin of citizens entering the country. As in some cases with the new-style passport it is not possible to look up the place of birth, some countries have raised this issue as a problem.

"We deem this a technical problem. In the short term, we have a solution, if citizens need to add a place of birth, it can be added to the annotation part of the new passport.  In the long term, if it is necessary to add the place of birth information to the new passport, then report it to relevant agencies and the National Assembly to amend the Immigration Law," Minister Lam added.