JEDDAH, 11 August 2005 — Misinformation entered on passports by the Passports Department is causing problems for Saudi travelers. Names misspelt and birthdates incorrectly transcribed from Hijra to Gregorian dates are the main difficulties. Travelers to the US, where accuracy is particularly important due to computer-held data, frequently encounter long delays at immigration.
“I study in the US and I have university documents that have to match the information on my passport,” said a 20-year-old woman. When she collected her passport after renewal she found that her new passport contained three mistakes. Her middle name, last name, and date of birth, were all wrong. “I’m really worried about getting my visa to the US renewed,: she told Arab News.
These small but important mistakes can mean children and family members not being recognized as part of the family.
“When I travel, I always have to explain to immigration officials why my surname doesn’t match with anyone in my family,” said another young woman. “Because of the typing errors in the passports, almost every member in my family has a different surname. This makes things confusing and inconvenient when traveling.”
“When I arrived in Egypt, they thought my passport was forged because my last name was not spelled correctly,” another woman said. “It was really embarrassing explaining to them why my name was spelt incorrectly.”
The Passports Department says that it will gladly make changes to any incorrect information written on a person’s passport. “All you have to do is come in and we will make the correct changes,” said a department employee.
However, this is no guarantee that they will get the information right the second time around.
“I took my passport to be corrected and the right information entered,” said one elderly male traveler. “They changed what they got wrong and but they made some new mistakes.”
He also added: “We live in a time where if I travel abroad with a careless mistake like this, the immigration may think I forged my passport.”
The consequences of that are at the very least long delays and perhaps detention.
One explanation for the mistakes is that many of the employees in the Passports Department do not speak English. As a result, they do not notice the mistakes they make in the English section of the document. Errors also frequently occur in the Arabic language section.
Another possible explanation can be that the employees have weak typing skills.
These explanations do not justify the errors. When applying for a passport, the person fills out an application form where they clearly type out all their information. The employees simply have to read the application and then type out the information.
At times people’s handwriting can be hard to read, yet there is no excuse for having multiple mistakes in a passport — especially after a complaint has been made to fix the information.
The problem then is employees not checking and rechecking their work. In other words: Pure carelessness. This is a problem that must be addressed as these errors can have serious repercussions on the passport holder.
