A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal identity and nationality of its holder. It is typical for passports to contain the full name, photograph, place and date of birth, signature, and the expiration date of the passport. While passports are typically issued by national governments, certain subnational governments are authorised to issue passports to citizens residing within their borders. Many nations issue (or plan to issue) biometric passports that contain an embedded microchip, making them machine-readable and difficult to counterfeit. , there were over 150 jurisdictions issuing e-passports. Previously issued non-biometric machine-readable passports usually remain valid until their respective expiration dates. A passport holder is normally entitled to enter the country that issued the passport, though some people entitled to a passport may not be full citizens with right of abode (e.g. American nationals or British nationals). A passport does not of itself create any rights in the country being visited or obligate the issuing country in any way, such as providing consular assistance. Some passports attest to the bearer having a status as a diplomat or other official, entitled to rights and privileges such as immunity from arrest or prosecution. One of the earliest known references to paperwork that served in a role similar to that of a passport is found in the Hebrew Bible. Nehemiah 2:7–9, dating from approximately 450 BC, states that Nehemiah, an official serving King Artaxerxes I of Persia, asked permission to travel to Judea; the king granted leave and gave him a letter "to the governors beyond the river" requesting safe passage for him as he traveled through their lands. In ancient Indian context, the Arthashastra (3rd century BC) make mentions of passes issued at the rate of one masha per pass to enter and exit the country.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related courses (1)
HUM-446: Governing global migration I
This course examines key areas of contemporary migration politics in a historical perspective, such as refugee protection, border security, and regional integration. It also trains students in methods
Related lectures (11)
The Turning-Point of the 1920s
Explores the 1920s immigration reversal, 'The Great Migration', passport controls, the League of Nations' role, the Nansen 'Passport', and biometrics history.
Nationalism and Citizenship
Delves into nationalism, citizenship, migration policies, and their historical impact on immigration restrictions and the modern world.
Inverse Functions: Guided Exercises
Covers guided exercises on inverse functions and the composition of functions.
Show more
Related publications (7)

Machine learning based detection of digital documents maliciously recaptured from displays

Touradj Ebrahimi, Evgeniy Upenik, Saleh Gholam Zadeh

We used to say “seeing is believing": this is no longer true. The digitization is changing all aspects of life and business. One of the more noticeable impacts is in how business documents are being authored, exchanged and processed. Many documents such as ...
2020

The Extended Access Control for Machine Readable Travel Documents

Rafik Chaabouni

Machine Readable travel documents have been rapidly put in place since 2004. The initial standard was made by the ICAO and it has been quickly followed by the Extended Access Control (EAC). In this presentation, we discuss about the evolution of these stan ...
2010

Secure communication using authenticated channels

Sylvain Pasini

Our main motivation is to design more user-friendly security protocols. Indeed, if the use of the protocol is tedious, most users will not behave correctly and, consequently, security issues occur. An example is the actual behavior of a user in front of an ...
EPFL2009
Show more
Related people (2)
Related concepts (26)
Identity document
An identity document (also called ID or colloquially as papers) is any document that may be used to prove a person's identity. If issued in a small, standard credit card size form, it is usually called an identity card (IC, ID card, citizen card), or passport card. Some countries issue formal identity documents, as national identification cards that may be compulsory or non-compulsory, while others may require identity verification using regional identification or informal documents.
Schengen Area
The Schengen Area (ˈʃɛŋən , ˈʃæŋən) is an area comprising European countries that have officially abolished many passport and many other types of border control at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and justice policy of the European Union (EU), it mostly functions as a single jurisdiction under a common visa policy for international travel purposes. The area is named after the 1985 Schengen Agreement and the 1990 Schengen Convention, both signed in Schengen, Luxembourg.
Statelessness
In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. On November 12, 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated there are about 12 million stateless people in the world. The status of a person who might be stateless ultimately depends on the viewpoint of the state with respect to the individual or a group of people.
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.