Licences
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Licences
Inkjet,
There's quite an interesting story about why your licence no longer has a picture. Years ago, up to the 1980s the UK professional licences had a passport function, effectively allowing UK citizens back into Blighty without a separate passport. Quite a useful function in those pre-EU days. One day, the CAA Licensing department received a letter from a pilot saying that he was having a sex change operation and so could his licence be re-issued, reflecting new name and gender. CAA was fairly relaxed about this but referred the case to the Home Office, concerning the passport element. Home Office said not possible for various legal reasons relating to gender change. So the long and short of it was CAA decided to ditch the passport function to avoid this and other possible future conflicts with legislature. This coincided with computerisation of FCL so it was convenient to ditch the photo. Of course, with today's technology, a digital image could be inserted but I shouldn't think it,s worth the bother.
There's quite an interesting story about why your licence no longer has a picture. Years ago, up to the 1980s the UK professional licences had a passport function, effectively allowing UK citizens back into Blighty without a separate passport. Quite a useful function in those pre-EU days. One day, the CAA Licensing department received a letter from a pilot saying that he was having a sex change operation and so could his licence be re-issued, reflecting new name and gender. CAA was fairly relaxed about this but referred the case to the Home Office, concerning the passport element. Home Office said not possible for various legal reasons relating to gender change. So the long and short of it was CAA decided to ditch the passport function to avoid this and other possible future conflicts with legislature. This coincided with computerisation of FCL so it was convenient to ditch the photo. Of course, with today's technology, a digital image could be inserted but I shouldn't think it,s worth the bother.
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I've just had my licence back after adding a new type and have just noticed that under section IX (validity) it says
"A document containing a photo shall be carried for the purposes of identification of the licence holder."
Why not have a photo as part of the licence as in the old days, or would that be too obvious? After all with these things being produced by a computer these days I'm sure they could digitise it and insert it into the document.
Maybe it's just me they don't trust!
"A document containing a photo shall be carried for the purposes of identification of the licence holder."
Why not have a photo as part of the licence as in the old days, or would that be too obvious? After all with these things being produced by a computer these days I'm sure they could digitise it and insert it into the document.
Maybe it's just me they don't trust!
