There has been almost 600 passports or important documents went into wrong address or missing in the last year compared to 248 four years ago, according to the Times.
Nearly 4,500 passports or supporting documents have been lost in the past decade alone with many thought to have fallen into the hands of fraudsters who use them for identity fraud, a Freedom of Information request by The Times revealed.
Katy Worobec, of Financial Fraud Action UK, told the newspaper: 'Information is the life blood of the financial fraudster.'
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the fraud prevention charity Cifas added: 'Your passport is a valuable document t that contains personal information that can be used to commit identity fraud again you if it falls into the hands of criminals.
'A lost document is more than an inconvenience, it is a real threat.'
Some victims of passport losses claim the Passport office itself has a cavalier attitude when documents go missing.
Sarah Lebutsch told how her passport and that of her husband and her eldest daughters' birth certificate – along with supporting documents – ended up with a stranger after she applied for passport's for her two children.
'We received an e-mail from a lady we do now know who lives in Northampton who informed us that she had received our older daughter's birth certificate and our passports,' she explained.
'She had immediately called the Passport Office only to be causally told to stick them in an envelope and freepost them back.
'She did not feel comfortable doing this and instead tracked us down via the Internet.
'I called the Passport office immediately, expecting them to be apologetic. I was told to await a call back within four hours but heard nothing. I called again, only to be advised that no one was around until after the bank holiday.'
The delivery of passports is currently handled by DX who are a private company who have held the £21 million delivery contract for the past 12 years.
The cost of a passport has risen by 75 per cent since 2005 with the current price standing at £72.50.
It is estimated that around 550 passports will go missing this year with some 300 passports posted to wrong addresses.
The Passport Office has 7 regional offices around the country and 50 passport 'interview' offices.
Around five million passports are issued each year with 99.5 per cent sent out within ten days.
However, the Passport Office maintained the problem of missing passports was small compared to the large number of documents issued each year as a spokesman added:
'The safety of our customers personal data is of paramount importance and every attempt is made to recover lost or misdirected documents.
'Once reported passports are cancelled on the system immediately to mitigate against the risk of misuse and we work with DX to develop measures to reduce the number of losses overall.'
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