Where the data comes from

The source

All records originate from passport collection lists published publicly by the Immigration and Citizenship Service. Nothing is obtained from any private or internal system, and nothing is added to what has already been made public.

What is read

Only publications that are genuinely passport collection lists. The Service also publishes recruitment announcements, shortlists and examination results. Those are lists of named people too, and treating one as passport data would publish job applicants as passport holders, so every publication is checked for an application-number column before anything is stored.

What is excluded

• Recruitment and examination publications.
• Early lists that contain names but no application number — nothing could be looked up in them.
• Any list that fails validation against its own row numbering.

Errors

Lists are reconciled against the row numbers printed in them. A list that does not reconcile is held for review rather than published with silent gaps, so a reading error can be corrected later.

Withdrawn lists

Publications are sometimes withdrawn. When a published list disappears, the records taken from it stop being returned by searches here.