Australian passports are admired globally for their technological sophistication.
The biometric passport, which includes advanced facial recognition technology and anti-fraud measures, was adopted nearly two decades ago.
But there was a time when our passport wasn’t held to the highest standards.
In 1915, Atlee Hunt, then Australia’s Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, was informed that “certain foreign ports” were complaining about the poor standard of Australian passport photographs.
These international complaints led Hunt to ban the use of photos of so-called artistic poses in passports, as well as any pictures taken against elaborate backdrops.
Australians weren’t the only ones pushing the creative boundaries of passport photography. For example, a 1918 Italian passport photo from Italy shows a man smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper at the same time.
Later Australians were required to have photographs clearly showing the person’s full face, head and shoulders. And to counter fraudulent activity, authorities introduced an official stamp.
But the evolution of photographs is just one part of the centuries-long history of passports and their different formats around the world.
Ancient Egypt and Biblical times
Patrick Bixby is a professor of English at Arizona State University, who has explored passports, their past and their paradoxes. He’s written a book called License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport.
He says one of the earliest mentions in Western historical record of a form of passport is in the Old Testament when Nehemiah requested a travel permit from the king. This Jewish leader is known for rebuilding Jerusalem in the fifth century BC.
Even further back, there are references to a 14th century BC document that served a similar purpose in ancient Egypt.
“So-called Amarna tablets, which contain what we might identify as the earliest surviving safe-conduct pass [as] a precursor to the modern passport, allowed its bearer (most often a messenger of some sort) secure transit through the lands of the issuing sovereign and even beyond into the domains of other kings and pharaohs,” he tells ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live.
Passports were gradually introduced around the world, but the first country to introduce passport photos by law was Germany on January 1, 1915. The photos are vastly different to the ones used today. For example, one passport photo depicts a woman alongside her beloved dog, and another portrays a German woman playing an instrument.
Widespread use
Passports were in widespread use in the early 20th century in Australia due to the rise in conflict and instability abroad.
Yet while the passport provided its owners with more freedom, it also led to more surveillance.
David Lee, an Associate Professor at the UNSW School of History, says the take-up of passports in Australia had a great deal to do with the war.
Professor Lee worked in the historical section at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for 24 years, and he co-authored a book about the history of the Australian passport.
“World War I was really a pivotal period because the Commonwealth government wanted to keep tabs on … male people who were departing the country because [the government] had ambitions to introduce compulsory training and conscription, and also they wanted to keep tabs on people coming into the country,” Professor Lee says.
Prior to the war, the states had the power to issue passports and they were reluctant to give up that authority. However, after the Defence Minister George Pearce said that passports were “a defence matter”, the states relinquished their power on November 5, 1914.
From then on, only the federal government issued passports. It also made them mandatory for all travellers.
The Australian government was ahead of Britain in introducing a photograph-based passport, although it was only a matter of weeks before Britain followed suit in 1915.
Indeed, before World War II Australian passports didn’t exist. We used British passports instead.
“We didn’t have a category of Australian citizenship until 1948 and then, gradually, after 1948, the bearer of an Australian passport needed to be an Australian citizen,” Professor Lee says.
Today passports are a mark of privilege. You have to be a citizen of a country and be able to afford one.
And it wasn’t until 1967 that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were given citizenship in Australia.
Some Indigenous communities around the world, including Indigenous Australians, have rejected their country’s passport altogether in protest at the lack of recognition of their status, and instead have issued their own passports.
For instance, in 2014, four Australians re-entered Australia via Canada on Aboriginal Provisional Passports, documents that are not recognised by DFAT.
“I suppose you would say they’re largely symbolic gestures. There are any number of instances of this. The Aboriginal passport in Australia is an important one, an early one of these lines of documents that have been created by Indigenous communities around the world to assert their sovereignty in relation to settler nations,” Bixby says.
“In some cases they do work, but often the way that they work is sort of upside down and backwards, if you will.
“In other words, if someone attempts to re-enter Australia with an Aboriginal passport, they’re likely to be detained. That’s likely to make the press, and it’s likely to be an opportunity then to revisit these issues and to make certain assertions about the sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples.”
Then and now
The Australian Passports Act was introduced in 1938, and it was the main legal framework for passports in Australia until it was replaced in 2005.
The 2005 act updated many parts of the passport legislation, including the use of technology in ePassports, like the biometric passport and facial recognition technology.
This technology is also a key reason why Australian passport holders receive visa-free access to over 180 countries today.
“These rankings measure the degree of security and safety of a document, and particularly with the biometric passport, the Australian document is a very secure and safe one,” Professor Lee says.
Recently it was announced that the application fee for a passport had increased.
Now it is the most expensive passport in the world, although this hasn’t deterred many Australians from owning one.
According to recent DFAT statistics, nearly 15 million people, over 55 per cent of Australia’s population, have a current passport.
