A Camouflage passport is basically a “look like” of a real passport issued in the name of a non-existent country or entity. The basic idea of these passports was to present as a not very interesting man from a not very interesting country.
Camouflage passports come with privacy benefits such as alternative identity or nationality for the purposes of travel to less secure risky parts of the world to avoid being singled out by hostage takers or terrorists. These documents are novelty fantasy passport, or a fake of a real passport is often carried along with original passports during travels. These documents may bear the name of nonexistent countries (e.g. British Honduras, Ceylon, Burma, etc). These passports can be bought like a toy for few hundred dollars. To hold a camouflage passport is not illegal can be legally carried around, a wrong use may be accountable.
Some governments occasionally issue ‘passports of convenience’ to persons who do not possess the nationality of the country concerned and have little or no connection with it. These documents are neither counterfeit nor falsified, and the majority have the appearance of full national passports, but either make no reference to nationality or refer to nationality only by a numerical coding.
Here are list of camouflage passports blacklisted by European Commission, where visas cannot be affixed. These are the passports of former States no longer in existence.
- British West Indies (now various individual Caribbean States)
- British Guiana (now Guyana)
- British Honduras (now Belize)
- Bopuhuastwana (Bopuhuastwana now part of South Africa)
- Burma or Birma (now Myanmar)
- Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)
- Ciskei (now part of South Africa)
- Dahomey (now Benin)
- Dutch Guiana (now Suriname)
- Eastern Samoa (now American Samoa)
- EURASIA – Passport
- Western Samoa (now Samoa)
- Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
- Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati)
- Iraq/ Kurdistan Immigration Id Card
- Netherlands Guiana (now Suriname)
- New Grenada
- Netherlands West Indies (now Netherlands Antilles – part of NL sovereign territory)
- Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia)
- New Hebrides (now Vanuatu)
- Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
- Republic of Zanzibar (now belongs to Tanzania) • Spanish Guiana (now Equatorial Guinea)
- South Vietnam (now Vietnam)
- St. Christoph(er) & Nevis (now St. Kitts & Nevis)
- Transkei (now part of South Africa)
- UdSSR (now divided into successor States)
- Windward Islands (now Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines)
- Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo)
