Forged Irish Passports (Again)

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DublinTexas

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So citizen wishing to get a passport can’t get a passport because of strikes, work to rule or broken machines which were introduced to make the passports me secure.

Now the 2nd time in a couple of month another allegation of forged Irish passports comes to light. First the allegation that the "Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations" used them when they terminated a wanted criminal/terrorist in Dubai, now the Russian KGB sorry FSB is alleged to have used them for their spies in the USA.

When will our Mister of Foreign affairs get his department under control and get things sorted?
 
Not sure why you are looking to blame the Department of Foreign Affairs though. Am sure we are no the only Country that has forged passports hanging around.
 
No need to forge them when passing a few bob a politician would get you a real one.
 
Sunny said:
Not sure why you are looking to blame the Department of Foreign Affairs though. Am sure we are no the only Country that has forged passports hanging around.
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Because they are responsible for the mess!

What do we care that other countries have fake passports out there, we should start changing our passport system from verification over to electronic passports (including pictures/fingerprints) which are way harder to forge and also give greater security. Not to mention that soon if you pass does not have fingerprint you can’t go to the US without Visa.

Towger said:
No need to forge them when passing a few bob a politician would get you a real one.
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So True.
 
Sorry, I still don't get how some Russian spies decide to use a fake Irish passport and it is the department of foreign affairs fault. It like saying that the central bank is to blame for people trying to use fake money.
 
looks like all you have to do is to be pals with comrade medvedev and you get an irish passport pronto :D for the rest there's queues
 
Sunny said:
Sorry, I still don't get how some Russian spies decide to use a fake Irish passport and it is the department of foreign affairs fault. It like saying that the central bank is to blame for people trying to use fake money.
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Well if the Central Bank would give out money notes that are easy to forge I most certainly would blame them if I get one of those.

The fault of the Department is that the passports still have not the same security standard as other countries and the system we use to give out passports is very easy to manipulate as the recent example of Dubai has shown.

But I guess one fake passport more or less does not worry anybody.
 
DublinTexas said:
Well if the Central Bank would give out money notes that are easy to forge I most certainly would blame them if I get one of those.

The fault of the Department is that the passports still have not the same security standard as other countries and the system we use to give out passports is very easy to manipulate as the recent example of Dubai has shown.

But I guess one fake passport more or less does not worry anybody.
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Of course it is a problem and the Irish Government should take the same steps as they did with Israel by expelling a Russian diplomat/spy. I just don't get why you are blaming the Department of Foreign Affairs. It's taking civil service bashing too far. From what I gather the passport involved is pre 2005. The passports currently issued by the Department are the same standard and contain the same security features as the US or other European passports.

Every passport or document can be faked to some extent.

To be honest, the whole thing sounds like a bad spy novel. They were hardly handing over State secrets considering the FBI let them loose for years.
 
Sunny said:
Of course it is a problem and the Irish Government should take the same steps as they did with Israel by expelling a Russian diplomat/spy. I just don't get why you are blaming the Department of Foreign Affairs. It's taking civil service bashing too far. From what I gather the passport involved is pre 2005. The passports currently issued by the Department are the same standard and contain the same security features as the US or other European passports.

Every passport or document can be faked to some extent.

To be honest, the whole thing sounds like a bad spy novel. They were hardly handing over State secrets considering the FBI let them loose for years.
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Irish passports by the way don’t have the latest security standards like some of other EU countries.

Irish passports only have a chip that has the picture not finger prints , Irish passport while printed on a plastic card don’t have the special coating like other countries passports, Irish passports can be applied via mail with minimal documents while other countries require in person applications with strict controls.

This has nothing to do with civil servant bashing.

So let’s say a large software company called M is producing a digital certificate that you use as your online passport and it is not using the latest technology and gets compromised, you would not go so far as to complain about company M?

There is no difference, the minister must take responsibility for the problems in his department (where fake passports are just another symptom) , just like the responsible manager in M would have to take the responsibility.
 
Just like the responsible managers in D are taking the responsibility for millions of PCs produced with faulty capacitors?
 
DublinTexas said:
There is no difference, the minister must take responsibility for the problems in his department (where fake passports are just another symptom) , just like the responsible manager in M would have to take the responsibility.
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Before we call for a general election, there does need to be some context. First, an Irish passport was among numerous other passports, it appears that even countries with the latest technology are still vulnerable to fakes.

It was a fake passport, we've no idea how good it was or whether it was ever used. It seems that exactly like those good spy thrillers, these guys had a box each with numerous identities in them. Was the passport ever used for travel? Was it used to get into the country? Hardly considering they were still using Russian identities, had mortgages in Russian names, etc.

Passports last for 10 years, the latest "secure" passports have only been around in any state for a couple of years. In theory this passport could have been ifaked in 2000 and still be "valid". So could a US passport and any other EU passport, you can't compare the faking of a passport now to one made perhaps 10 years ago.

And as Sunny says, it is still possible to make a fake of even the most current secure passports. Yes I'd say more could be done with Irish Passports, but I don't think one passport among many other fake passports is such an issue that we need to be knocking on the minister's door just yet.
 
DublinTexas said:
Irish passports by the way don’t have the latest security standards like some of other EU countries.

Irish passports only have a chip that has the picture not finger prints , Irish passport while printed on a plastic card don’t have the special coating like other countries passports, Irish passports can be applied via mail with minimal documents while other countries require in person applications with strict controls.
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The use of fingerprint data in passports in European Countries has only come in around 2009 . The new Irish passports since 2006 are biometric passports and carry the same technology as any other Countries. Irish passports are capable of holding fingerprint data.

How do the Irish only require minimal documentation compared to other Countries? I can only speak for the UK where I could get my friend to countersign my application instead of having to present myself at a Police Station and I could apply on-line.
 
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