A quarter of people don’t have a passport

A quarter of people don’t have a passport in this area of the UK

Research by digital identity specialists, ID Crypt Global, reveals that 14% of the population does not have a passport, and that in some regions of the country, this figure rises to more than a quarter of the local community.

To calculate the proportion of people in the nation who do not have a passport, ID Crypt has analysed the most recent census data and measured the number of non-passport holders against the overall population.

In doing so, it has been revealed that just over 8 million people in England & Wales do not currently hold a passport, equal to 13.5% of the overall population.

While the main purpose of a passport is to enable foreign travel, they are also important for their use as a photo ID which is essential for everything from buying alcohol to voting in a General Election. The increased reliance on photo IDs is chiefly to reduce the chances of identification fraud, ensuring that people are actually who they claim to be, and ensuring that age-restricted products are not sold to underage people.

On a regional level, the area with the largest proportion of non-passport holders is Wales where 583,178 people without passports is equivalent to 18.8% of the population.

18.3% of people in the North East have no passport, while in both the East Midlands and West Midlands, 16.2% of the respective populations are not in possession of a passport.

The region with the lowest proportion of non-passport holders is London where a hugely diverse and multinational population means that just 5.6% of people have no passport.

On a local authority level, it’s revealed that in some areas of England & Wales, the proportion of non-passport holders is much higher than wider regional figures, in some cases reaching to more than a quarter of the population.

In East Lindsey, Lincolnshire, 25.8% of local people do not have a passport, while Blaenau Gwent in Wales records a figure of 25.5%.

More than a quarter of people also don’t have a passport in Great Yarmouth (25.1%), while the Isle of Anglesey (24.2%), North Norfolk (24.1%), and Pembrokeshire (23.8%) are not far behind.

CEO and Founder of ID Crypt Global, Lauren Wilson-Smith, commented:

“Because we don’t have a formal, obligatory ID card scheme like some nations do, our passport is a vital piece of documentation. And in the absence of a driving licence, a passport becomes utterly essential in today’s world where photo ID is required for voting, buying age-restricted products, filing tax returns with HMRC, securing a loan or mortgage, and so on.

Given its importance, it’s quite staggering that as many as eight million people are currently living without a passport across the UK.

Of course, while the driving licence provides an alternative method of identification, it does beg the question as to why, in this day and age, we aren’t fully leveraging the benefits of digital identity technology to move into the 21st century.

Digital identity can provide photo ID with strong cryptographic controls that mean as a form of identification, these should be trusted even more so than if someone presents their passport or driving licence.”