What is an unsigned passport?

Factual Questions
1

The only signature I can find in my passport is my own, I don’t remember being required to do it but you’re supposed to I guess.

There is no other sig in it of any government official. And no place for one.

I’ve seen it in news article as if a unsigned US passport is somehow of questionable authenticity or something, couldn’t the bearer just sign it?

(another article I saw googling seemed to suggest the issuing officer in the passport office needs to sign it, but this was not about a US passport)

2

SO its signed.

Thats all it is, the true owners signature.
If its not present, its not signed.
Why wouldn’t it be signed ? That may indicate its been traded around, its of a higher value if its easier to repurpose.

3

Well the picture of the passport holder might make that difficult.

What I meant was I don’t remember being told you must sign it, or it is invalid.

4

I’m looking at mine right now, and it says “This passport is not valid unless signed by the bearer in the area designated on page three”

5

Wasn’t the signature from your passport application transferred automatically to the passport? That’s what has happened with all of mine.

6

Bah I misspoke, what I was trying to say was I assumed you could sign it at any time and MAKE it valid. So the customs agent says hey this is invalid, you say ok hold on a second and sign it BOOM valid. I didn’t think there was a specific time period in which it had to be signed.

7

US passports just come with a blank spot for you to sign.

8

I got a passport a while ago but never used it. I lost my driver’s license and had to use my passport as ID at the airport. TSA informed me it wasn’t valid unless it was signed, and gave me a pen…

9

Boarding an international flight two weeks ago my wife had to present her license because she’d forgotten to sign her new passport. You’ll find out that it needs to be signed as soon as you try to use it.

10

That doesn’t sound very secure.

11

Did they have her sign it right there? I’m getting a funny mental image of them trying to stop you from signing and making it valid.

One of the articles I pulled searching had a woman SENT BACK to her home country over an unsigned passport, but with the odd wording that could have been translation issues I wasn’t sure if it was talking about her signature or something else.

12

I also forgot to sign mine before going to the airport, and the agent at the check-in desk told me I forgot to sign it and handed me a pen.

13

At least my passport has something resembling my actual signature. My drivers license was signed on the world’s smallest electronic screen with a similarly tiny stylus, and then printed at low resolution, noticeably pixelated.

14

He used her license for ID, then told her to go sign the passport ASAP. We were leaving the US, it might have been different if she was trying to return to the US.

15

Here is a British passport from 1846. In pre-photography days, a signature was pretty much the only way you had of identifying yourself.

Photographs came along in 1920.

If anyone is interested, the law which requires you to sign a passport is 22 CFR 51.4 - Validity of passports.

Digitised signatures were introduced on UK passports in 1998

16

Canadian passports also have digitized signatures. There is room left in the document for you to add your address and emergency contact information, but the page with your signature has already been printed and laminated when you receive it.

17

Maybe there was a little chain attached to the pen so he couldn’t take it.

Huh. I’d read that passports were an American invention about the time of the Civil War.

18

A Brief History of Passports

The word has been in use since 1540.

19

I just went in and out of Canada with an unsigned passport. Oversight on my part; lack of concern, I suppose, on theirs.

20

Thanks! Ignorance fought.