Pen on 2nd page of passport

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Renee123

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Hi I have discovered I have a pen mark on my passport. It’s on the second page werevthe little photo is. I’m travelling to Singapore and have rang qantas they said as long as.there is no damage to the front page I will be fine. What are your thoughts
 

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Welcome to AFF. :)

Hi I have discovered I have a pen mark on my passport. It’s on the second page werevthe little photo is. I’m travelling to Singapore and have rang qantas they said as long as.there is no damage to the front page I will be fine. What are your thoughts

If that was the extent of the advice from Qantas, I'd be a bit concerned. Clearly if there was substantial damage to the photo (ie damage not on the front page) it would not be fine.

I think you should be OK - but as ever, the decision at any countries' immigration is at the discretion of the individual officer assessing you.
 
Welcome.

Airline/authorities' focus will usually be brief and on the biodata page (not this page), and with increasing automation you mightn't face any issues. Having said that though the pen mark is in a delicate location (near the photo) which might give rise to suspicions of tampering - which isn't really easy with this duplicate image, however it might be cause for officials (who are prone to more probing) in some countries to bail you up a bit longer.

Safe travels :)
 
Had the same issue before, also bio page. As it was just normal biro/pen ink on a plastic-type laminate, a bit of saliva on my finger on gentle rubbing, and GONE!

(note: YMMV, it could be that my saliva simply contains magical properties unknown to civilisation)
 
If you can still be positively identified using the photo, then it ought to not cause problems, perhaps a few extra seconds for the border control to take a double-read (unless you come across someone overly keen on clean passport pages). DFAT has some guidelines and if you are in a capital city, it'd be easy to let them have a look to confirm the status of the passport.
 
How did the pen mark end up there out of curiosity?
 
I can't see any problem with this. It looks completely accidental rather than any attempted alteration. Happens all the time these days, espacially with the ink and stamps used by some immigration officials - can end up with blotches and marks on any page.
 
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Unfortunately you're really at liberty to the immigration officer on the day; neither QF or the DFAT will be able to give you a definitive answer on this.

In my experience in January, I had minor damage to my passport (a small tear on one of the pages) and the office was not impressed, despite the biodata page being fine. I was only in SIN for 24 hours (for a stopover returning home) so they gave me a paper transit visa I had to produce on departure. Hopefully, you won't any issues. Keep us updated.
 
Ah that page - well then there is nothing to be worried about

Caution in giving that assurance, sorry.

Unfortunately you're really at liberty to the immigration officer on the day; neither QF or the DFAT will be able to give you a definitive answer on this.

Exactly. At any time, entry through immigration is at the discretion of the agent on the desk. If they are having a bad day, you probably will too, and any reason or flaw can be used.

But as I said up thread, the OP will hopefully be ok on this one.
 
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My experience is a checkin agent placed a freshly printed boarding pass in between the first two pages of my passport and a small amount of ink transferred to the photo.

On subsequent trips the autogate on the way out of AU would not accept me and I had to be manually processed but the autogate on return was happy (different software versions?).

I went to the passport office and they took my password and tried to gently remove some of the ink but it wouldn't all come off.

I was warned if they tried any harder and the pic got damaged then I may end up having to buy a new passport so some ink had to remain.

Warned also that some manual immigration points would not be happy if they suspected the pic had been tampered with as a result of trying to remove the ink.

However on the next trip out my passport worked at the autogate on the way out and return
 
My experience is a checkin agent placed a freshly printed boarding pass in between the first two pages of my passport and a small amount of ink transferred to the photo.

On subsequent trips the autogate on the way out of AU would not accept me and I had to be manually processed but the autogate on return was happy (different software versions?).

I went to the passport office and they took my password and tried to gently remove some of the ink but it wouldn't all come off.

I was warned if they tried any harder and the pic got damaged then I may end up having to buy a new passport so some ink had to remain.

Warned also that some manual immigration points would not be happy if they suspected the pic had been tampered with as a result of trying to remove the ink.

However on the next trip out my passport worked at the autogate on the way out and return

Did the ink transfer to the photo on you bio page or the second page that just has your photo on it?
 
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