Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Forging of Singapore Passports by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law

Question:

Ms Joan Pereira : To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) how widespread is the forging of Singapore passports; (b) how many fake Singapore passports have been detected by foreign governments at their checkpoints; and (c) how many fake foreign passports have been detected by the Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

Answer:

The Singapore passport complies with the International Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO) standards for machine readable travel documents. In fact, the Singapore passport contains security features which are over and above ICAO's mandated standards.

1. The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) regularly reviews and upgrades the security features of the Singapore passport. In October 2017, ICA introduced a new design for the Singapore passport with additional security features to make the passport even harder to forge or tamper with.

2. There are few cases of forged Singapore passports. Between 2015 and 2017, ICA investigated and prosecuted six cases of forged Singapore passports.

3. ICA does not have records of the number of forged Singapore passports detected overseas, as foreign authorities do not usually notify others when they detect forged passports.

4. As for forged foreign passports, between 2015 and 2017, an average of about 80 annually are detected by ICA at our checkpoints.