DOB Not Required

[allodial]

More (above) on unknown or unspecified gender.



ICAO travel documents can have "visual inspection zone" or "VIZ" (i.e. the eyeball-readable area as compared to the OCR or RFID or barcodes), the MRZ and electronic/RFID data. DOB is *OPTIONAL*. I found the same instructions in a U.S. Consular instruction (i.e. put the part of DOB that you know or ..blank is possible).



Its widely known that place of birth can be left out of a passport. Canada allows requesting such to be left out. US Dept. of State apparently feels it to be 'mandatory'. Note that according to ICAO Doc. 9303 Part 1 Vol. 1 IV-11 "place of birth" is OPTIONAL.

Where the holder's name only has predominant component(s) [note the (s) allows for the singular], this data field SHALL BE LEFT BLANK.

Clearly, name can be ONE PART. Let's clarify what this means in MRZ terms. If there is a first name and a last name then you have << to separate them in the MRZ. Now China doesn't do it "LAST FIRST". but they separate into to parts like

"LAO<<TZU". (apparently means LAO, TZU) [while LAO<TZU would mean "LAO TZU" with no comma--not separate parts].

While USA, ISL and most others do

"SMITH<<JOHN<DOE" (which apparently means "SMITH, JOHN DOE")

(i.e. "LAST FIRST") China does it "FIRST LAST". ***HOWEVER** ICAO says: *IF* there is only one part....*LEAVE THE SECOND PART BLANK*. So that means if there is only, say, "David" they are told to put "DAVID<<<<<<<" in the MRZ. Interestingly on both booklet passports and passport cards, the name/identifier pretty much gets its own line to itself on the MRZ.