The secretary of State should improve the training and resources available to employees working at passport acceptance facilities for detecting passport fraud, especially counterfeiting, GAO has said in a recent report to a Senate judiciary subcommittee.
Last March GAO reported that an undercover investigator was easily able to obtain four genuine passports using counterfeit or fraudulently obtained documents.
According to GAO-09-583R, State acknowledged that it has issued other fraudulently obtained passports in the past and that it is in the process of improving oversight of passport acceptance facilities.
The report calls on State to establish a process for applications containing social security numbers whereby passport specialists are not able to issue a passport prior to receiving and reviewing the results of SSN and "death master file” checks, except under specific or extenuating circumstances and after supervisory review.
It also called on State to explore commercial options for performing real-time checks of the validity of SSNs and other information included in applications.
