As of Friday, 8 May 2015, the local Passport and Corporate Services Office (P&CSO) will no longer accept the current C1 and C2 application forms for Cayman Islands passports.

P&CSO is responsible for the collection, vetting and approval of passport applications. Once this process is complete, the passports will be printed by Her Majesty’s Passport Office (HMPO) in the United Kingdom (UK), then returned to P&CSO for distribution.

Premier Hon. Alden McLaughlin said his Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for the P&CSO, wished to thank the public for its understanding during this period of transition.

“While this process was started before this administration took the helm of Government, I am happy that we have been able to have good, frank discussions with the UK about our own unique needs and desires for a Cayman Islands passport,” Mr. McLaughlin said.

He added: “One of our concerns was keeping within our own house the ability to approve or deny passports and the distribution of documents, and we have been successful in that regard.”

To assist with this process P&CSO closed briefly for training on 1 May and will close again on Wednesday 6 May.

Commenting on the centralisation project, Head of Passport and Corporate Services Janice McLean noted that local applicants can expect some important changes to the process.

These are as follows:

1. New Form – To print passports on behalf of the British Overseas Territories (BOTs), HMPO’s application system requires information to be submitted in a specific layout. As of Tuesday, 5 May, P&CSO will begin accepting the new BOT forms. These are already available on the Department of Immigration website: www.immigration.gov.ky.

Meanwhile the P&CSO will accept current C1 or C2 application form until 8 May 2015 at which point they will be discontinued. Customers should note that these passports will be machine readable and not biometric.

2. Processing Times – Customers are asked to allow a four week window for processing, as passports will now be printed in the United Kingdom.

3. Emergency and Urgent Travel – In addition a policy on what constitutes urgent travel has been compiled and will be implemented uniformly across the BOTs.

Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, Monserrat and St Helena have all worked closely with HMPO since the centralisation project first began to be discussed in 2010. Centralised printing will be phased in for all BOTs over the months of May and June.

The move to centralise BOT passport production was in part to ensure that all British nationals have access to the latest biometric passports that feature internationally recognised security standards. (These are the ‘Scenic UK’ series of biometric passports with enhanced security features which HMPO has made available to British citizens everywhere since 2010.)

Printing passports in the UK also removes the need to deliver blank passports across the world; thereby helping to ensure the integrity and security of the British biometric passport.