the Royal Emblem and 'Passport' and the wording on the inside.
cover would be 'Her Brittanic Majesty's Secretary of State'
c) Timing
If we are producing a machine readable passport then because of
the demands of computerisation UK offices will not start to make
the new passports available until mid 1988 and issuing from all
offices will not be achieved until 1990. FCO will be no earlier
but they have yet to advise us how they would handle their
introduction from consular posts. It is possible that HMSO may
be able to produce sufficient stocks of the passport for use in
Hong Kong in 1987 and that, because they already have
}
considerable experience with the computeised issue of identity
cards, Hong Kong would be in a position to produce the passports
in 1987. If the passport is not to be machine readable we would
aim to issue it from all offices in 1987 and we would expect
Hong Kong to do the same.
7. Hong Kong have indicated that they would wish the new format to
be introduced for BN (0) passports when the UK introduces the change
generally. Whether if they were in the position by a matter of
months to issue these ahead of us there would be advantage in doing
so, can be considered nearer the time. The July 1987 introduction
of BN (0) status does not allow much time however and the probability
!
is that intitially BN(0)s will receive the same traditional hard
blue cover passport in Hong Kong, in the UK and from overseas
posts.
Thereafter there will be a mix of the old and new for some