I’ve just been filling in the form to renew my passport. There was a question that I don’t remember seeing before on the passport application form:
Q: Are you an identical twin?
If you anwer “yes” would your passport be marked in some way? And what does a person who is an identical triplet, quadruplet etc answer for this question?
This is just a guess, but what the hey, here goes.
Perhaps the State Department’s passport bureau keeps a database of passports issued and the same place and date of birth along with the same parents might tend to show that one person was seeking to have two passports under different names. Couple that with the photograph submitted that, of course, looks like one’s identical twin and it might just be easier on the bureau personnel to have a column to indicate identical twins.
But that’s just my guess.
I’m an identical twin and I’ve had a passport and a renewal and I’ve never seen that question. Huh. There is a special box on (at least my) birth certificate for multiple births.
“If the answer to the above is Yes, are you the good twin or the evil twin?”
Can’t they tell by your mustache?
Seems like they must be preparing for the biometric data they promise will be coming on passports. Otherwise they would simply ask if you were a twin. They don’t care if you are a fraternal twin.
Wow, ignorance is fought! I thought only twins were identical but upon googling I have learned something today.
Perhaps it’s part of the lead up to Australia’s national ID card, “officially” slated for introduction in 2010.
Papers, please, mate!!
The malicious cackle is usually a dead giveaway.
What if you were adopted? You might not know whether you were an identical twin.
Never one to shirk away from my SDMB research responsibilities, I just called my brother and asked him this question. He’s an identical twin, has never left the country before, but is getting married and about to go on his honeymoon abroad and had to get a US passport.
He says there was no such question on his passport application form.
Maybe it’s an Australian thing?
No the Dionne quintuplets were identical. More precisely, three were identical and the other two were identical to each other, but mirror image twins to the other two, which means the twinning process for them took place a little later after chirality (handedness) was established. Regardless, they were one egg twins.
Wow! I thought they were just the first surviving quints, not that they were identical.