Does my passport have possible damage?

[Ozmum]

I have just pulled out my passport to start planning for our next overseas holiday. It’s an Australian passport P series and is valid until 2027. I have just noticed what appears to be tiny scratches or lines on the photo page? They don’t feel raised and they look slightly random, but at the same time they could possibly be forming an image I can’t quite recognise. I have never noticed them before.. not that I’ve ever really paid that much attention. Does anyone know if this is a security feature? Or does anyone else have these on their passport too? Thanks

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Depends on where you are travelling. Some immigration authorities can be quickly fussy when it comes to even the slightest damage to a passport. In theory a digital image of you and your biometric details should be stored on the passport so that authorities can simply scan your passport page and go from there.

Whereabouts are you travelling to?

-RooFlyer88

 

[Ozmum]

Depends on where you are travelling. Some immigration authorities can be quickly fussy when it comes to even the slightest damage to a passport. In theory a digital image of you and your biometric details should be stored on the passport so that authorities can simply scan your passport page and go from there.

Whereabouts are you travelling to?

-RooFlyer88

We are planning on travelling to the USA. It will be the same passport I used to travel there at the end of 2019. It has just been sitting in a drawer since we got home.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I just checked my Canadian passport and there is a crease on the biometrics (photo) page. The passport itself is 9 years old and I had no issue entering the UK, USA, and Australia with it and that crease has been there for some time. If you are paranoid, then by all means get it renewed. That being said there may be a wait for it and in the grand scheme of things the border officer will likely not care.

One thing I don't know is how US immigration works for non-Canadian/USA citizens. Is it a scan of the passport at a kiosk or is it literally a matter of queueing to have an agent look at your passport and ask you questions? If it's a kiosk, then I would think that a scratch here or there won't matter since it'll just read the RFID off your passport to gather the necessary information.

-RooFlyer88

 

[RooFlyer]

The USA has a mix of entirely electronic immigration entries and entirely manual ones and some airports do both ( LAX last time I went through, BC). Given that you need an ESTA before departing, and given that your info is stored electronically in your passport, based on my experiences, as long as the photo and reading strip along the bottom are both reasonable , @Ozmum I wouldn’t be worried