The Obama administration’s record on open government isn’t so hot, but the State Department expects the utmost in transparency from anyone applying for a passport. Here are the details on a proposed passport application:

The proposed new Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history including employers’ and supervisors names, addresses, and telephone numbers; personal details of all siblings; mother’s address one year prior to your birth; any “religious ceremony” around the time of birth; and a variety of other information. According to the proposed form, “failure to provide the information requested may result in … the denial of your U.S. passport application.”

This document is only intended for those who do not have a birth certificate, so additional scrutiny is warranted. But compliance with the form is a mixture of the difficult and the impossible. Security clearances generally only require employment and residence information going back seven or ten years, but this form asks for a lifetime accounting of both. Providing details on the circumstances of your birth is asking a lot — but a listing of pre-natal appointments?


To cap it off, the State Department estimates that the average person will only require 45 minutes to compile the information for this form.