失窃护照问题引关注

失窃护照问题引关注

Stolen identities

An official stamps on a passport at the border control after checking in an airport in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, on Tuesday. Photo: CFP

The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370), which was carrying more than 200 passengers and crew, has been on every front page since March 8.
Public attention has particularly focused on the use of stolen passports by two travellers on the flight. How did they evade security? What risks are there to those who lost their passports?
"I lost my passport once in Thailand years ago," Net user Albus Quillan (a Harry Potter-derived online pseudonym) told the Global Times, "and the recent reports make me worried about what will people do with stolen passports and what kind of trouble it will bring to the original owners."
According to reports, the owners of these two passports reported the loss. That they could still be used highlighted a grave security concern about passport control.
The disappearance of MH370 does not appear to be related to terrorism, although a CNN report quoted a US intelligence official as saying "that's by no means definitive. We're still tracking."
But like many others, Albus's biggest concern was that stolen passports may be used by terrorists and one day the original owner could find that his or her name is on a wanted list.
For Wang Xiaofeng, who lost his passport in France in 2013, the big concern is financial. He worries whether the lost passport will be used in other ways, like activating some mobile phone service that will charge money monthly and bill him.
There are many kinds of business that use passports to check ID and they don't require the document to be checked by the border authorities, Wang said.
Loopholes
The two men who boarded the missing flight with stolen passports were identified as probably Iranians on Tuesday by Malaysian police and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). They appear to have been trying to sneak into Germany and to have no ties to terrorist groups.
There is no foolproof system for checking cross-border travel, according to a commentary on CNN written by Brian Havel, a director of the International Aviation Law Institute at DePaul University College of Law.
Havel states that although some "smart" solutions, such as biometric passports and electronic visas, are now in play, many forms of documentation used every day by millions of airline passengers are not digitized and are not being checked against any international databases.
Fake passports are commonly used. In 2010, reports revealed that at least 10 passengers on the ill-fated Air India Express flight from Dubai, which crashed on a runway offshoot, were using fraudulent passports.
In the same year, police in Spain and Thailand smashed a counterfeiting ring which aimed to provide fake European passports to Al Qaeda.
The group stole passports, mostly from tourists in the Barcelona area, and sent them to Thailand to be doctored and later distributed to groups linked to Al Qaeda.
Interpol has established a database of stolen and lost travel documents. According to Interpol, the database enables Interpol National Central Bureaus and other authorized law enforcement entities (such as immigration and border control offices) to ascertain the validity of a travel document in seconds. But the system is sometimes ignored, since it adds an extra level of validation to an already time-consuming checking process for travel.
It was created in 2002, following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, to help member countries secure their borders and protect their citizens from terrorists and other dangerous criminals using fraudulent travel documents.
As of March 2014, it contains information on more than 40 million travel documents, such as passports, reported lost or stolen in 167 countries, and it was searched by member countries more than 800 million times in 2013, resulting in some 67,000 positive responses, or "hits."
Interpol said that no country checked the two passports used to board the flight, even though they were reported stolen in Thailand.
China's efforts
"If someone loses their passport and reports the loss, we will issue a new one and the old one becomes invalid," Lin Song, a staff with the Exit-Entry Administration Division of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Only the information of permanent residents will be recorded into the system, Zhang Huide, an expert on exit-entry management with People's Public Security University of China, told the Global Times.
"For overseas Chinese who hold Chinese passports and use them as the equivalent identity cards in China, losing the passports can bring more hidden troubles since it won't be recorded in China's exit-entry system," Zhang said.
Some South Koreans in China sell their passports to would-be entrants to South Korea, Zhang said, adding that cases of foreigners who lose passports in China are not recorded either.
At present, advanced examinations like fingerprint checks haven't not used yet by border authorities in China. But since China's been issuing electronic passports inputting holders' fingerprints, the examination will be upgraded in the future to better screen forgeries, according to insiders.
Both Wang and Albus said that after they reported the loss of their passports and applied for new ones, they were thoroughly inspected by Chinese border agents.
Lin said new passports have different serial numbers from lost ones, and the lost one cannot be used within the national system.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security, which are in charge of the issuance and management of passports, haven't given any details on cooperation with Interpol. Neither did Interpol, when reached by the Global Times.
Interpol encourages its members to extend access to the I-24/7 network to major airports, border crossings and other strategic locations.
However, Zhang believed that enforcement will be difficult. "The entry-and-exit information system involves national security, and it will require legal authorization to network with service or business agencies," Zhang said.
More countries may set up a passport database coordinated with Interpol after the MH370 incident, Zhang added.
"More immigration liaison officers will be sent to key regions," said Zhang, adding that anti-forgery measures will also be upgraded to include more electronic and biometric measures.

从3月8日起，载有超过200名乘客和机组人员的马马航370号客机神秘失踪的新闻一直出现在各家媒体的头版头条。

图片为江苏省南京市，3月18日时一名官员在边检处为完成登记手续的旅客的护照盖章。（图片：视觉中国）

从3月8日起，载有超过200名乘客和机组人员的马航370号客机神秘失踪的新闻一直出现在各家媒体的头版头条。

公众的关注目前特别集中于本航班中两名乘客对被盗护照的用途。他们是如何逃脱安检的？对丢失了护照的人而言，又存在怎样的风险？

“许多年前我曾在泰国丢失过护照，”网友“阿布斯•基洋”（一个来源于哈利波特的网名）告诉《环球时报》说，“最近的报道让我担心，别人会如何处理被盗的护照，以及这会给失主到来什么麻烦呢？”

据报道，这两本护照的失主都曾报失过。被偷的护照依然能使用，这暴露出在护照控制方面仍存在巨大的安全问题。

尽管一份美国有线电视网的报道引用了美国一位情报官员的说法“这绝不是盖棺定论，我们依旧在追踪（事件调查进展）”，但马航370的消失似乎与恐怖主义并无关系。, K9但和许多人一样，阿布斯最大的担忧在于失窃的护照可能被恐怖分子利用，突然一天失主意外发现自己的名字出现在通缉名单上。

王晓峰（音译）曾在2013年于法国丢失了护照，他最大的担心是经济上的。他担心失窃的护照是否会被用于其他用途，比如开通一些每月收费的手机服务，并会向他收费。

有许多种以护照来审核身份的服务并且它们并不要求边境当局核查文件，小王说。

漏洞

马来西亚警方与国际刑警组织在17日公布的消息：以失窃护照登上失踪航班的两人目前被认为很可能是伊朗人。他们似乎一直试图偷渡进入德国而与恐怖组织并无关联。

据布莱恩•哈弗尔，德保罗大学法学院国际航空法律研究所的主任在CNN上的评论，目前针对跨境旅行暂无万无一失的检查体系。

哈弗尔称，尽管有一些“巧妙的”解决方案，比如生物特征护照和电子签证，目前正在实施，数以百万计的航空乘客每天使用的多种形式的文件都没有电子化，也无法依靠任何国际数据库核查。

假护照并不罕见。在2010年，报道显示至少10名旅客，在由迪拜出发在跑道支路上不幸失事的印度特快航班上，使用的是欺骗性的护照。

同年，西班牙与泰国警方联手摧毁了一个向基地组织提供伪造欧洲护照生产链。

这个团伙主要从在巴塞罗那地区的游客身上偷窃护照，并将它们送往泰国伪造，随后分配给与基地组织有联系的团伙。

国际刑警组织已建立了一个包含被盗与遗失旅游证件的数据库。据国际刑警组织称，这个数据库能确保其国家中央局和其他经授权的执法机构（比如移民和边境检查办公室）在数秒之内确定一份旅游证件的有效性。这个系统可以为现存的耗时的旅游检查程序增加更高水平的可靠性，但是它有时却被忽视了。它是于2002年被创建，紧随美国2001年的的“9•11恐怖袭击”，为了帮助成员国能使各自的边境安全以及保护他们的国民免收恐怖分子和其他使用虚假旅游证件的危险犯罪分子的危害。

谈到2014年3月的事件，它包含了关于超过4亿份旅行证件的信息，比如在167个国家内被报告遗失或被盗的护照，而它在2013年被成员国检索过超过80亿次，带来的结果是有约6.7万的有效回应或者说“匹配”。

国际刑警组织称没有国家检查到那两份被用来登机的护照，尽管它们报失于泰国。

中国的努力

“如果有人遗失了他们的护照并上报遗失，我们会发放一份新护照而旧的就会失效。”林松（音），北京市公安局出入境管理局的一名员工，在17日告诉《环球时报》的记者。

只有永久居民的信息被录入了这个系统，张辉德（音），一名中国人民公安大学的出入境管理专家，这样对《环球时报》的记者说。

“对于持有中国护照并将在中国境内将其作为身份证的等同物的海外华侨来说，由于其不会被中国出入境系统记录这会带来更多潜在的麻烦。”张辉德说。

一些中国境内的韩国人将他们的护照卖给即将前往韩国的人，张辉德说，这也会增加在中国丢失护照却并未记录的案例数量。

现在，像指纹检验这种先进的检验并没有被中国的边境主管当局应用。但既然中国已经在发放输入了持有者指纹的电子护照，有关的检验会在未来被更新以便更好地屏蔽伪造物，据内部人员透露。

小王和阿布斯都称，在他们报告过他们的护照丢失并申请新的护照时，他们都被中国边境代理机构彻底地检查过。

林松介绍道新护照与旧护照的序列号不同，而遗失的护照在国家系统内都无法使用。

掌管护照发行与管理的中国外交部与公安部，目前尚未公布与国际刑警组织合作的细节。当《环球时报》与国际刑警组织接触时，他们也同样保持沉默。

国际刑警组织鼓励其成员国将I-24/7(一种全天候网络系统)网络的权限延伸到主要的机场，边境通道及其他关键位置。

不管怎样，张辉德相信执行过程会困难重重，“出入境信息系统牵涉到国家安全，这需要对网络的服务和商业代理进行合法授权，”张辉德说。

在马航370号事件后，会有更多国家与国际刑警组织合作建立护照数据库，张辉德补充道。

“更多移民联络官会被派往重点区域，”张辉德说，并称包括电子和生物识别技术在内的防伪技术会被更新升级。
 

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