Ask users toManually enter passport details

Users enter passport details in response to a series of questions.

When to use this pattern

Entering passport details manually can be a source of error. If you need more trust in the data, you could take or upload photo or scan the chip.

Consider whether you need all the information, or just a small amount of it, such as the passport number. Depending on your users or journey, you may find evidence for separating over multiple pages or for including on one page.

You may have also collected some of this information already, such as sex, name and date of birth. You can either:

• when you ask for the information, explain that it should match their passport
• ask for the information again, if you think it could be different from their passport

This pattern could be used as an alternative option if the other patterns do not work for a user.

The captions for the fields in a passport must be translated into English, French or Spanish.

You should make it clear which passport the user needs to enter the information from, because a person may have several.

Allow users to check their answers after manually entering passport details.

How it works

Passport number

If more than 9 characters are entered, say 'Passport number must be 9 characters or less'.

If characters that are not letters or numbers are entered, say 'Passport number must only include numbers and letters a to z'.

Nationality

The nationality may be shown on the page in full or as a 3 letter code. In the MRZ, nationality is a 3 letter code.

Country of nationality

You may label the field as ‘Country of nationality’ instead of ‘Nationality’. There may be advantages and disadvantages to this. You should consider whether or not they are relevant to your service.

The advantages are:

• the options are mostly countries, such as ‘Sweden’ instead of ‘Swedish’

The disadvantages are:

• not all the options are countries, such as ‘EUE - European Union’
• it's different to what appears on most passports, which is either Nationality (English), Nationalité (French), Nacionalidad (Spanish)

We don’t know whether ‘Country of nationality’ or ‘Nationality’ is easier to understand for people without English as their first language.

If your users are not British or from the international organisations that issue travel and identity documents, we recommend using ‘Country of nationality’. This is because all the options will be countries.

Country of issue

The country of issue field is referred to as the Issuing state or organisation in ICAO, Doc 9303. The standards say that it must be:

• written in out in full at the top of the passport page in English, French or Spanish
• shown as a 3 letter code under Code or Country code (in English, French or Spanish)

We need more evidence for the hint text in this question, what makes it easier for users to find the country of issue in their passport?

The issuing authority is a separate mandatory field, which refers to some organisation within the country of issue. You should ensure you don’t confuse users by referring to ‘authority’ or ‘issuing authority’, when you need the country of issue.

Issue date

The issue date should be validated to be in the past, using the GOV.UK date input guidance.

Expiry date

All passports have an expiry date.

If you’re capturing current valid passports, then the expiry date should be validated to be in the future, using the using the GOV.UK date input guidance.

Not all countries have a standard 10 year length of passport validity. You may know more about expiry dates from your context, such as if you are collecting UK passport details.

Accessibility

Give users adequate time to find and enter the information. Some users may need extra time to locate and enter the information. See 2.2.1 - Timing adjustable of our accessibility standards.

Consider that users may need more than one method for capturing the information. What do they do if they hit a barrier?

Allow users to check their answers after manually entering passport details. This is both a check of the information, and that they're providing information from the correct passport.

You should try and prevent errors by being as specific as you can about the format of input and where on a passport this information is. We need to improve the hint text for inputs on this pattern.

Research

This pattern is used by:

• Apply for a visa
• Central operations platform
• Confirm your identity (Generic identity verification)
• Update your UKVI account details

Help us improve this pattern

This pattern needs improving. We need evidence about:

• asking for information from emergency passports
• asking for information from other identity documents, such as national identity cards, UK residence card, biometric residence card, biometric residence permit
• how the search for nationality should work, do better matches appear closer to the top, what about alternative country names so ‘Britain’
• if nationality or country of nationality is clearer to users, particularly observed confusion over the options being mostly countries
• if country of issue causes a barrier for entering passports issued by an organisation (say the European Union) rather than a country
• the hint text for country of issue, how do users interpret the first page of the passport
• the list of values users select from for nationality and country of issue
• improving the hint text for all inputs to better explain where users would find the information on their passport

To contribute, add your thoughts and research findings to our GitHub discussion, or follow our contribute guidance.