New service to be faster and simpler
The Central Passport Service (KYED) will be housed at an ELAS building at 8 Chiou Street, in Kaisariani. It is scheduled to move in there in late May and two months of tests and staff training will follow. The service will operate 24 hours a day and employ 100 police officers. Strict security measures will be in force and access to the building will be solely by means of a special magnetic card and a fingerprint scan. Alexandra Papageorgiou, the granddaughter of renowned architect Dimitris Pikionis, designed the interior and has also designed a similar passport service center in the US. KYED will be able to issue 6,000 passports a day. Passports will be issued in five days from the time the application is made. The new procedure is as follows. Someone who wants a new passport submits an application, accompanied by their photograph and a photocopy of their identity card, to the local police station anywhere in the country and has their identity confirmed on the spot. The application and the other documents are sent to KYED in a blue envelope and are scanned in color. The data is sent to the Data Input Section where the scanned information is transferred to forms. The forms are then checked by the Approval Section, which is linked to a police database, and which confirms that the applicant is legally entitled to the passport. Then the passport is printed and if it is in order, a quality controller will give it a quality receipt. The passport and the receipt are then sent in a green file to the police station where the application was made to be handed to its owner. Anyone who has applied to have a passport issued may get information on the progress of their application if they request it via the Internet, using their personal code number; by telephone; or by text message on their mobile phone. The KYED premises will also have a museum screening videos of the history of the development of passports, and displays of various kinds of passports from many countries.
