Disallowed characters in names of passports and ID cards

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to request the following information under the Freedom
of Information Act.

In the following, “disallowed characters” means accented, special
alphabetic or non-alphabetic characters that are not allowed to be
used for names. These might include (but this request is not
limited to) characters from Welsh, Gaelic, French, German, Spanish,
Russian or other languages, or punctuation characters like a dash,
colon, period, or digits.

(1) The rules and/or procedures used by UKPA to substitute
alternative characters if a passport applicant’s name contains
disallowed characters. If there are rules or procedures, please
also specify the name(s) and identification reference number(s) of
the documents (whether electronic or paper based) and page or
section number that contain them.

(2) If it is not included in (1), any list of disallowed and/or
allowed characters for British passports.

(3) Any memos, emails, procedures or other rules which discus how
to deal with passport applicants who have “disallowed characters”
on their already-issued birth certificates.

(4) Number of times that the rules in (1) or (3) are used each year
and number of complaints from clients in regard to this matter over
the past 5 years.

(5) The rules and/or procedures used by UKPA to substitute
alternative characters if an Identity Card (as presently issued by
the Home Office) applicant’s name contains disallowed characters.
If there are rules or procedures, please also specify the name(s)
and identification reference number(s) of the documents (whether
electronic or paper based) and page or section number that contain
them.

Thank you very much for your attention to this request. I look
forward to receiving your reply within the statutory time limits.

M. Roberts

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have not yet received a reply to my request for information. I
would like to remind you that you are required to provide a
response within 20 working days.

Yours sincerely,

M. Roberts

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have had no response to my original Freedom of Information Act
request, nor to the followup reminder.

A response is now overdue. I look forward to a substantive response
from the service, as well as an explaination of the cause of the
delay.

Yours sincerely,

M. Roberts

Dear Sir or Madam,

My Freedom of Information Act request (
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/di...
or http://tinyurl.com/p7xquw ) has received no response from your
department. It has now been almost 2 months since I submitted my
request and 1 months since I sent my followup.

I would like to request an internal review of the handling of this
request. Please contact me as soon as possible with information
about who will be doing the review and how long it will take.

Yours sincerely,

M. Roberts