I do not know if it’s true for all countries, but at least the USA and the UK require your passport to be signed to be valid. And I know that when I fly, I sometimes get checked if it is signed.
Is there a practical reason for this? Does the signature get checked against anything? Or is it simply that the law says a passport must be signed to be valid, so there you go?
I googled around a bit, but only found resources on how to sign, but not why it needs to be signed.
Thank you Internet hive mind!
Legacy from a time when it was used as authentication. I guess. I sure find myself not reproducing my past signatures very well. Never got me in to trouble.
I had my passport renewal denied because the signature on the renewal form didn’t match the old passport. And since I no longer had the old passport to copy the signature style when I resubmitted, I had to throw in a photo copy of my drivers license (that had my signature), use that signature style on the new form, and a letter explaining that the signature on the new form matches something official and is correct.
That is a crazy process. But I’m happy that you were somehow able to get a new passport :).
Banks will sometimes require your signature match the original signature they have on file. I’m guessing it’s not as common anymore with online banking but I know a few years ago I had to sign something a number of times because it wasn’t close enough to the original.
I thought about it and it might have been around 10 years ago😬
I nearly got into trouble once. In a bank. I signed a document, the signature didn’t quite match, they kept asking me to redo it (“we need it just like in the passport”) but after the third or fourth try they let it through.