Hacker News Reader

Comment by mcsniff | Hacker News Reader

Not only can you complete a UK Passport Application completely online (save for mailing any required documentations to HMPO), you can apply for a brand new passport as a "new" citizen (by adoption, naturalisation, or descent), online, from outside the UK, with just a mobile device without downloading some special app, including taking the photos.

Sure, you can play it on "hard mode " and do it with paper and pen for the lulz, but my experience was extremely efficient, fast, and straight-forward.

View on HN

I went through the UK online passport renewal system last year, and it is the best website I have used in a very very long time. A real breath of fresh air. It worked perfectly on my old computer and 'ancient' browser. Everything very simple / accessible / clear, colours, text, buttons, fields, requirements. A simple step-by-step navigation and actually friendly.

It is a shame that more businesses dont care about their customers enough to invest in such a well designed website. Well done HMPO.

Seconded! In my experience, Gov.UK does pretty well in general and am happy to say that as one who privately fumes about various aspects of Britain in recent years.

I work with Equal Experts, who built this system for HMPO. Feels good to get this feedback.

You can easily tell the difference between services built under GDS, where the work favoured local contractors and agencies and otherwise smaller outfits, and those farmed out to the usual huge consultancy firms that are typically mired in controversy.

I would have much, much lower expectations for a body shop like Infosys or Accenture or Thoughtworks. They probably wouldn’t implement the design system right without billing extra for attention to detail.

I agree, I also renewed my passport recently and the website and process is quite smooth. It's the more complex cases, first requests from abroad, etc., that lack automation.

Renewed recently which was my first time using the online system. The entire process was exceptionally fast. I got the passport back in less than 2 weeks from California.

In comparison my Canadian passport renewal (damaged after 3 years) from California took 4 months. Was entirely paper based and had ridiculous requirements such as requiring a reference and a photograph stamped by photographer.

I know there's a digital pilot that's ongoing. That should be rolled out ASAP.

Just being able to do it via mail sounds like luxury, to renew a Swedish passport you need to visit an embassy in person. And then in 2 weeks go back in person to pick it up. Really fun when the embassy is on the other side of the country and it means expensive plane trips. This was even more of a problem during COVID when borders were closed, since Sweden doesn't have embassies in every single country.

And they expire in 5 years, not 10 like many other countries.

I need to renew my Belgian passport soon, and I live in the United States.

Even though the consulate has my biometric data, I need to visit them in person.

My only saving grace is that they sometimes visit my city., and I can register there. But that registration is only valid for 1 year, and they don't visit every year...

And that is still 2h+ one way of travel for me, for something they already have.

The Belgian passport comes in exceptionally fast though. For me it was ready for pick up in the Belgian embassy in less than a week from application.

> Even though the consulate has my biometric data, I need to visit them in person.

don't they need to re-record them after X years? I thought that was the whole point of renewing an identity document/passport.

You make it seem much simpler than it is in reality. I accept the process for renewals has been streamlined with considerable success but, as someone who recently helped a friend apply for his first passport a couple of years ago, I can attest the process is drawn out and tedious. An in-person interview is required, as is a signature from a 'responsible person' that many people do not have access to (Doctors are not accepted, for instance).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com