I recently concluded a few weeks of overseas travel. (damn back to work). I have travelled regularly for 20 plus years and in that time we have gone from the old manual passports, to the now standard Machine Readable Passports. They are all still stamped, when you enter a new country or travel zone (like the Schengen EU nations), and it is still a manual stamp, even though they are all scanned as well.
Presumably, it would be easy to simply add the travel record to the booklet that it tells the officer travel history, in fact, I would be shocked if this is not the case already.
Part tradition, plus some people do like to look at the stamps to remind themselves of where they traveled and when. There’s no real reason not to do it (stamps are cheap and last a long time), so they keep up the tradition.
And, for a more practical reason: it’s a lot easier and more efficient to look at the stamps in the password than go to a computer and scan it. The customs officer may not have a scanner available, but can just look at the stamps to determine if the person has a right to be in the country. That’s even more true if you are detained somewhere outside the airport: the cops in a small town would not have access to sophisticated equipment to scan, but a stamp will show you have a visa.
Never been to Mexico but I’ve been to Canada several times and have only had my passport stamped once. And that was because I was traveling with my nieces and they specifically asked to have their passports stamped.
As RealityChuck points out, there are many circumstances in which one may be asked to show one’s passport in which a computer or scanner may not be available. While this is especially true in the developing world, it’s also true in the First World as well, especially in the case of emergencies. Any official who needs to can look at the passport and determine if you are in the country legally.
I’m not sure what exactly you are suggesting. If you’re saying there should keep a database of when each person enters/exits the country - I’d guess many countries do it, but how and why would they share that information with other governments? And without a worldwide network/database, and without the stamps, you’d have no way to prove which countries you visited. E.g. no way to prove you were not in Cuba or North Korea.
I carry a European passport, and I always ask to have it stamped when I enter or leave the Schengen zone, because otherwise they wouldn’t. One time, the officer handed me the stamp so I could do it myself.
It really varies from place to place, and from time to time.
When I fly to Canada I get stamped about half the time.
When I fly to a Schengen country I get stamped every time upon entry, and then again upon exit.
To answer the OP’s question, in the case of the Schengen countries I can guess that maybe their computer systems are not all tied together. So if you enter in France but leave in Germany, at the German passport control exit at the airport they need to see the France entry stamp to make sure you didn’t overstay.
According to my “70 something” parents, who were just recently bitten by the travel bug, it’s so you don’t forget and end up shelling out to visit the same country more than once.
It’s helpful to have your documentation be clearly laid out and in your control. That provides some defense against situations like “Sorry, madame, we don’t seem to have your record. But of course, this can all be resolved right here with a token fee…” The idea is that the traveller is ultimately responsible for and in.control of their travel documents.
There are also still plenty of border crossings around with no hint of electricity anywhere around. I’ve been to remote border posts where the records were kept in big hand written books. Passport stamps work anywhere, and allow countries more options for managing remote borders.
Finally, as mentioned earlier, they provide a paper trail documenting your travel history (plus or minus a few quirks) without requiring much international coordination. This can be helpful to border agents wanting to identify fishy pattens.
In Israel the passport isn’t stamped; instead, the visa is printed on a small card, the officer stamps it, and it’s tucked into the passport. This is because there are other countries that won’t let people enter if there’s an Israeli stamp in the passport.
When I applied for Leave to Remain in the UK, I had to provide a detailed list of my travels for the previous five years. Without the stamps in my passport I would never have had a clue. Canada never stamped it when I arrived so I only knew when I got back to England by the stamp at Heathrow…Live Journal filled in the rest!
Oh, I understand that. But, stamps are fairly easy to forge. Some of the ones in my passport are barely legible. Others have quite a bit of written information. So the security claim is a bit iffy.
On a practical note and from personal experience, you may have to prove that you are in the country legally to someone without a passport scanner. The stamp works as proof of your visa.
I think it’s not common practice for countries (or areas, such as the Schengen zone in this case) to stamp their own pasports upon entry or exit, since as a citizen of the country/area you’re entitled to reside there anyway so there’s no need to document visas and residence permits in the passport. Stamping usually takes place only on passports of other countries.