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| An employee of the Suwon City Government's passport bureau shows Korea's new blue passport, left, alongside the new lineup of diplomatic passports, emergency passports and official passports, Dec. 20, 2021. Newsis |
By Ko Dong-hwan
It has been less than two weeks since Korea's new blue passport came out. However, according to the revised Passport Act under review, it won't be issued to certain citizens ― those who had a habit of losing their old green passports too often.
The revised law under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs applies the limitation to those who previously lost their old passport three times or more in the five years since they renewed it. Those who previously lost their passport two or more times in the year since they renewed it are also in the disadvantaged category. They will instead be issued another green passport that expires in two years.
The revised act, currently under review by the Ministry of Government Legislation, will be put into force for the next three years once it passes the review.
The foreign ministry has decided to keep issuing the old green version of the passport because it still has a number of unused ones, according to reports. A ministry official said that the decision was made as the country is trying to transition to the new passport; it is looking to put the revised law into effect temporarily until all of the leftovers have been used up.
Introduced on Jan. 21, the new electronic passport uses polycarbonate and a laser mark on its personal information page to increase durability and security. The pages were originally made of paper. The new passport also comes in two types that expire in either five or 10 years.
Korean nationals have been using the existing green passport since it was introduced in 1988.
