Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 20 December 2023 to Question 6492 on Crime: Databases, whether the Government plans to increase police access to HM Passport Office data to help identify criminals.

The government is committed to making sure the police have the tools and technology they need to solve and prevent crimes and keep the range of policy and technology changes needed to enable this under review. Not to keep pace with change will leave our communities vulnerable.

Territorial police forces and the National Crime Agency, for example, have access to a range of datasets to help them identify suspects or victims. This includes the Passport Office databases

The Home Office, working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, continues to assess the national policing programmes to determine the best approach to delivery of digital capabilities. This includes discussions on the merits of combining policing databases.

There are no plans to merge the Police National Database and the Passport Office Databases and therefore no assessment of merits has been made.