Some 7,000 Singapore passports reported stolen or lost each year

[webfact]

Some 7,000 passports reported stolen or lost each year



BANGKOK: -- About 7,000 Singapore passports have been reported lost or stolen each year over the last five years, said Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Masagos Zulkifli in Parliament on Monday, The Straits Times reported.

And an average of about 350 travellers yearly across all the checkpoints in Singapore have been found to be holding forged or tampered travel documents, or have presented documents that did not belong to them.

He was responding to questions from five MPs who had tabled questions on passport infringements, in light of reports that two passengers on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had used stolen passports.

When a report on a passport being lost or stolen is received, said Mr Masagos, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore (ICA) will immediately cancel the passport, update its database and convey the relevant information to Interpol.

ICA, he added, works with global partners to exchange information on lost and stolen travel documents to deter cases of passport infringements.

Since 2008, the authority has also been using Interpol’s database as part of its passport documentation process. The database contains over 40 million travel documents that have been reported stolen or lost by 167 countries.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/7000-passports-reported-stolen-lost-year/


-- Thai PBS 2014-04-15

[Lupatria]

LOS the land of plenty. First an overstock of rice and now Swedish an Singaporean passport surplus in Khao San Road.

[Dap]

"Some 7,000 passports reported stolen or lost" (or sold) "each year."

[belg]

i guess they are worth a lot of money for people who want to travel freely or live/work in singapore the easy way

[tx22cb]

7,000 a year = 20 per day!

5 years = 35,000 Singaporean passports lost or stolen.

There are 3.3 million Singaporean citizens (i.e. those eligible for a precious Singapore passport), out of a population of 5.3 mln. Souce: http://www.singstat.gov.sg/statistics/browse_by_theme/population.html

Singaporeans are well-travelled, so let's say 80% of its citizens have passports.

Hence total number of Singapore passports = 2.6 mln.

So in 5 years, over 1.3% of all its issued passports are lost/stolen - an incredible number.

[dighambara]

Not news - Passports are an archaic method of keeping track of travelers.

A news report recently claimed that 14% of the passengers the NY to France airliner that crashed had forged passports,

[kangaroojack]

I was in koh chang last week and motorbike hire places were insisting on holding your passport (not a photocopy) in order to hire a bike. I tried to explain that it is illegal for them to do this but there response is no passort no bike. The police or government dont seem to do much about telling these operators it is illegal for them to demand they hold someones passport for any reason.