The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) is an executive agency of the Home Office in the United Kingdom. The agency became operational on 1 April 2006, succeeding the UK Passport Agency, after the passing of the Identity Cards Act 2006.
The service provides passports for British nationals, and life event certificates such as birth, death, marriage and civil partnerships. The UK passport provides evidence of a person’s nationality and allows UK citizens to leave and re-enter the country.
All adult first time passport applicants are now required to attend an interview with the Identity and Passport Service in order to verify the identity and status of the applicant.
IPS' headquarters is in London and it has seven regional offices around the UK, in London, Glasgow, Newport, Belfast, Peterborough, Liverpool and Durham as well as an extensive interview office network. On 1 April 2008, the General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO) became a subsidiary of IPS.
Famous quotes containing the words united, kingdom, passport and/or service:
“Places where he might live and die and never hear of the United States, which make such a noise in the world,—never hear of America, so called from the name of a European gentleman.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
...
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little, little grave, an obscure grave.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Whenever [Leonard Bernstein] entered or exited a country he would fill in on his passport form not composer or conductor, but musician. Of course people in the press spent a lot of Lenny’s life telling him what he should have done; he should have been a concert pianist, he should have composed more.... And people wouldn’t let him live his own life. But he created his own career, in his own image.”
—John Mauceri (b. 1945)
“Let not the tie be mercenary, though the service is measured in money. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)