Home Department written question – answered at on 24 January 2006.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of forged passports in use in the UK in the latest period for which figures are available.
Although by the very nature of the problem it is impossible to quantify the number of forged passports circulating within the UK, it is a concern I take very seriously. Our response is led by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's National Document Fraud Unit (NDFU), which is recognised at home and abroad as the leader in its field.
NDFU conducts full forgery detection training for Immigration Nationality Directorate (IND) staff. As a result, in 2004 a total of 8,285 fraudulent documents were detected at UK ports of entry, an increase of 4 per cent. over 2003. Croydon NDFU detected 1,044 fraudulent documents, an increase of 25 per cent.
Our experience in IND, confirmed by agencies such as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), shows that abuse of identity documents is increasing, assisted by the spread of computer technology. To combat such abuse NDFU provides forgery detection training to other organisations including the police, Customs and Excise, DWP etc, as well as to the private sector, aiding detection of falsified documents within the UK, and hindering the adoption of false identities.
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