Via Blairwatch, I encountered this gem at the Times:
Hundreds of thousands of people applying for a British passport will have to undergo a face-to-face interview in an attempt to cut fraudulent applications.
[T]he department outlined proposals to make first-time applicants travel up to 20 miles (32km) and face up to 200 questions about their family, bank accounts, mortgages and previous addresses.[...]
More than 600,000 applicants will be affected by the rules, which come into force in May, and will increase from three to six weeks the time it takes to issue the £66 adult passport. The Home Office will abandon the one-week fast-track service from June 1. First-time applicants will have to travel to one of a network of passport offices for the face-to-face interview.
And in spite of the new mandatory interviews, the Brits will still be able to turn around passport requests much faster than the U.S.’s “send in an application, two photos, and some money” process.
In defense of the hassle the British passport office is creating, the article notes that there were several allegedly fraudulent applications for passports made. I foresee a shift from fraudulent passport requests to outright counterfeit passports coming soon in the U.K.