This is my passport. As you can see, it is a passport from the
United States, the one and only country of which I am a citizen. It’s a cool little booklet, featuring iconic
scenes and quotes from American history, but there’s an even cooler feature: it grants
me access into other countries. These blue books are valid entry and exit
ID everywhere in the world except North Korea, because they had to be that way, but how exactly
does it work? Well, a passport is effectively just a form
of ID, but one that other countries also recognize, and can stamp upon entry, and sometimes also
upon exit. Passports are effectively representations
of your nationality, basically a way to prove you are who you say you are. Now, before we get into all the fun, little
details about different passports around the world, let’s talk about some basic passport
protocol. You know, just some stuff you need to know
about your passport (at least your US passport) and what you can/cannot/should do. Your passport is admitted to you by your government,
and is exclusively property of the government. It does not truly belong to you, it’s just
a document your government grants you to prove who you are and what country you come from
to foreign (and local) border control. In fact, the first page of the US passport
(which is not the ID page, for some reason) states, “The Secretary of State of the United
States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national
of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of
need to give all lawful aid and protection”. Basically, it’s the US government saying
“we’ve got your back, bro”. Now, a few things for you to keep in mind. First, as US government property, you are
of course required to surrender your passport if asked to do so by a US government representative,
or to a border control or police officer from any country. However, altering or mutilating your passport,
or carrying someone else’s passport, or altering or mutilating someone else’s passport
are all strictly forbidden, like, you’re-actually-probably-going-to-jail forbidden. The only people who are allowed to make any
alterations in your passport are, of course, border officials. Like, the people in the airport who flip over
to a certain page and put a stamp there. Okay, now onto the fun stuff. Of course, as we all know from a previous,
award-winning video of mine, not all passports are created equal. Different countries’ passports grant their
holders different visa restrictions. For example, Mexico’s border control requires
everyone entering on a Kuwaiti passport to have a visa issued to them by the Mexican
embassy in their area, whereas American passport holders can essentially just show up to the
border. However, this is of course the exact opposite
from how it’s done in Saudi Arabia. Interestingly, most Americans don’t actually
possess a passport of their own, and many never have at all. For many Americans, a passport simply isn’t
necessary, since it’s something we literally only need if we want to travel to another
country, and we all know how often Americans do that. However, things are different in some other
countries. In Russia, for example, Russian citizens often
have two different types of passports, one for external travel (basically a normal passport)
and something called an internal passport. The internal passport is a document required
for all Russian citizens above the age of 14, and is used as documentation for travel
around Russia, usually when boarding trains. It’s not just Russia’s internal passport
system, either, most countries around the world grant some certain citizens differing
types of passports. For the US passport (just to keep everything
simple) there is more than just the regular passport, like what I have. Some notable examples also include the gray-covered
service passport, for anyone doing work abroad to support the US government; the maroon-colored
official passport, largely used by politicians and military personnel serving abroad; the
black-covered diplomatic passport, for high-ranking politicians and… diplomats; and of course
the emergency passport, just in case you’re stuck abroad and need to get a passport quickly. As you may have guessed, diplomatic and service
passports also often have different visa requirements than regular passports, as diplomats and government
workers will have different protections and priorities for the host country than regular
tourists. In the olden days, passports were just little
booklets with ID info and a bunch of pages to stamp, but most countries around the world
in recent years have been shying away from this for biometric passports, which you can
identify with this little, rectangular logo with the circle thing in it. Nowadays these passports are often issued
exclusively instead of their non-biometric counterparts, as many countries are starting
to require travellers to enter with biometric passports. Biometric passports are just like regular
passports, but with a special microchip inside, which saves data about the user’s biometric
info, which helps with things like facial recognition (for automatic passport checks),
fingerprint info, and even iris scan info. Finally, onto the fun cultural stuff. Since passports are essentially little booklets
displaying your nationality, it’s perhaps no surprise that many countries take the chance
to put many different national symbols and features on their passport covers. Some notable examples include Germany’s
Bundesadler, Brazil’s southern cross, and Iran’s right-side opening. Many countries will also put mentions to any
major organizations they’re part of, like Antigua and Barbuda with CariCom, or Germany
in the European Union. The color of the passport covers also play
a surprising role in this, as well. Though there are varying shades, there are
only four passport color groups in the world: blues, reds, greens and blacks. Red passports are often sported by current
and former Communist countries and countries in the Andean community in South America,
however the EU has adopted a pan-EU burgundy shade, which every member (except Croatia)
has adopted. Even some non-EU member nations, like Turkey
and Serbia, have adopted this color in their passports because of, well… Of course, with breakfast [Brexit] due to
take effect in the end of March, there has even been talk to change the British passport
from its current shade of EU-red to its old shade of blue, matching with those of the
US, Canada and Australia, which will be made in France. Wait, but what about New Zealand? Well, anyone who knows anything about New
Zealand (or at least knows how to say “kia ora”) knows that New Zealand’s national
color is black [insert All Blacks reference], and so their passports are of course the same
color. Thank you as always for watching, and if you
are interested in travelling to other countries, while also supporting the channel, then be
sure to visit the affiliate links I have put in the description of this video for ivisa.com,
a website that makes getting travel visas hilariously quick and easy, so be sure to
check them out. Other than that, be sure to like and subscribe
to learn something new every Sunday.
Great video thank you for sharing! :)
Neat!