Turkish citizens who want new biometric passports, prepared in accordance with international standards, will be able to get appointments from police departments on May 23.To prevent any problems, new passports will be mailed to citizens. Turkey's consulates will issue passports to citizens living abroad. Standard passports will be red, diplomatic passports will be black and special passports will continue to be green in this new system.
Around 5 million people are currently passport holders in Turkey, and almost 2.3 million Turkish passports are renewed or their terms are extended in Turkey and by Turkey's foreign missions every year.
New passports will be valid only for the term written on them, and cannot be renewed or extended. Turkish police departments will continue to renew old passports until the end of the year, but will stop extending passports in 2011.
A biometric passport, also known as an e-passport or ePassport, is a combined paper and electronic passport that uses biometrics to authenticate the identity of travelers. It uses contactless smart card technology, including a microprocessor chip and antenna (for both power to the chip and communication) embedded in the front or back cover, or center page, of the passport.
The chip inside the passport contains information about the holder's face such as the distances between eyes, nose, mouth and ears. These details are drawn from the passport photograph that the holder supplies. They can then be used to identify the passport holder. The chip also contains the information printed on passport personal details pages.
