Uncle Josef Blair

First-time passport applicants aged over 16 will face a list of up to 200 personal questions when compulsory interviews are introduced later this spring.

Applicants will be asked about their ancestry, including the background of their parents, previous addresses, details about counter-signatories and other questions designed to establish a ''social footprint'' of who they are.

Joan Ryan, a Home Office minister, said the new system was justified to combat fraud, though this amounted to just 0.15 per cent of applications.

Full article, Telegraph UK, March 21, 2007

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My letter to the Telegraph UK:

Dear Editor:

I had thought the United States would win the race to the creation of a totalitarian police state. But not to be underestimated. the Brits have leapt ahead with the outrageously invasive Stalinist interrogation techniques that will precede the granting of a passport.

Terry L. Clark