I recently applied for and successfully got my Australian Passport. I know that I need it to travel overseas, I’m just not sure I fully understand why?
Is it just so that the Australian government knows when I am leaving and re-entering the country?
Is it of any use to the customs officers at the foreign airport I will be arriving at? Is it of any interest to Australian customs officials that some guy arrives with a Kenyan passport, which would be a passport that Australian officials have absolutely no way of verifying the legitimacy of?
The country you are entering has every right to know the country of which you are a citizen. A passport obviously is proof of that citizenship. There are still countries out there that worry about citizens from certain other countries entering their space. Passports are internationally recognized as a proof of citizenship. New scanning methods also allow for automated data collection on who is arriving from which country, when, where and for how long.
The purpose of a passport is not so much for your home country, but so you can prove your citizenship or nationality to the countries you are visiting. For example, the US has a mutual visa waiver program with 35 countries. People with passports from those countries can enter the US as a tourist without a visa. People who don’t hold one of those passports require a visa to enter.
For countries requireing a visa, the visa + valid passport are required. More often than not, the visa is a stamp or document pasted into a passport. The visa says that Joe Smith has the authority to enter the country, and the passport proves that you are in fact Joe Smith.
Just to clarify, the visa means the consulate has no objection to Joe Smith entering the country but does not grant Joe Smith any right to enter the country and he can be turned back on arrival at the border for any reason or no reason.
Note that the USA now requires those people to electronically file for a travel authorization which is a thinly disguised visa by another name. The difference is that you do not need to go in person to the consulate but can get it online.
And your passport is your proof of citizenship. Passport or, in some cases, other forms of National ID. A Spanish National ID for Spanish Nationals (DNI) can be used instead of the passport to travel to other EU countries; a Spanish National ID for Foreign Nationals (tarjeta de inmigrante) can’t, as it’s not proof of citizenship.
Look at the bright side, with an Aussie passport you can travel most places, with mine (Pakistani) I almost always need a visa, and thats a process that can take weeks. So no flying for a weekend for me.
The primary purpose and function of a passport is that the country issuing the passport certifies who the bearer is and requests other countries to allow him to enter and “pass”. So, the passport exists to fulfill the requirement of other countries which require such a travel document from foreigners. As has been said, some countries do not require passports from certain other countries. Europeans can travel around Europe without a passport and Americans can travel to Canada without a passport.
So, the passport exists to fulfill a requirement of the receiving country. I remember there was a thread quite some time ago where someone complained that American passports had French language in them and pretty much said to screw the world, they are American passports and we will do them only in English. This, of course, ignores the fact that countries are free to require whatever they want and could reject those passports which would then be useless. It is the receiving country which sets the requirements. America has been making changes and demanding machine readable passports etc. Other countries could refuse to issue them but America would be free to not recognise them.
A secondary use and effect is that the issuing country now has the ability to deny passports to its citizens as a way of preventing their travel to countries which require passports which, until recently pretty much meant they were unable to leave the country. In order to issue a passport governments may require proof that one does not owe taxes or a favorable police report, etc.
I remember a discussion between a Chinese and a Taiwanese about their respective difficulties for travel. Alluding to Taiwan not being internationally recognized the Chinese said “the difference is that our premier can travel anywhere in the world while yours can hardly travel anywhere but we have great difficulty getting visas to go anywhere while you can travel anywhere quite easily”.
Used to be much better for us. Until 1979, when 3 million Afghans showed up, and many of them got passports (which were ridiculously easy to get back then). Even now 80% of the visa applicaton for most countries is proving you are not Afghan.
Picking up one point on this - it is not the customs officers that need your passport, it’s the immigration service. For instance, in Australia you have the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Austraian Customs Service. One is interested in people entering and leaving, the other is interested in goods entering or leaving.
When you arrive at the foreign airport the first thing you do after leaving the plane (apart from walking miles along bleak corridors ) is to queue up at the immigration desk. There might be separate lines for locals and foreigners (in the EU, the separation is between EU citizens and others) but this is where your passport will be checked.
Only when you have got passed these people will you pick up your check in bags and go through customs.
Basically, EU countries mutually recognize their national IDs and they are valid enough proof of identity to serve as passport within EU - since no visas etc. are required from EU citizens anyway. Surprisingly sensible solution, IMO.
That’s not been my experience at Sydney Airport, on the 20 plus times I’ve gone through: first you go through immigration, then you collect your bags, then you go through customs.
When you visit countries with more stringent control/tracking of citizen and non-citizen travel, your passport and visa serve not just as your ID, but as a means of ascertaining where you are and for how long. E.g., in Vietnam my passport is held by my hotel for the duration of my stay, and I can’t get a room without it. If I want to spend a night somewhere else but retain my room, I must obtain my passport from the first hotel and present it to the second in order to get a room.
Visas may be used to exclude entry (e.g., an Israeli visa keeps you out of some countries), or for security purposes (e.g., to sequester or give extra special searches to people with visas from some countries).
) is to queue up at the immigration desk. There might be separate lines for locals and foreigners (in the EU, the separation is between EU citizens and others) but this is where your passport will be checked.