A few months ago, my wife and I renewed our passports. Strangely enough, since then, we are being repeatedly stopped at airports, mostly in the UK, and asked a number of questions. At first, I thought that it might just be that UK passport controllers were always slightly paranoid. However, this happened in other EU countries as well.

In fact, we are always being given the same advice: Please use your national identity card because your passport photos' quality is too poor! Moreover, other passport controllers commented that the plastic sheeting is on the wrong side of the page! In fact, a colleague at work has recently come back from a holiday in Greece and he was telling me that he almost ended up with a confiscated passport. He was told that his passport was forged because his photo was of the same quality as a colour photocopy.

I am not an expert of passport design and I could also have a very common and ordinary face for all that matters. I was wondering whether anyone else has been through this experience.

I am just fulfilling the promise that my wife jokingly made to one of the controllers - that we will be informing our government! I am hoping to bring this issue to the attention of the responsible people through The Times.