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I went to the German consulate this morning and applied for a German passport. The process took less than ten minutes. While the German government website had told me to bring "original and one photocopy" of my birth certificate, marriage certificate, naturalization certificate, and American passport, the clerk made photocopies on their machine instead of using the photocopies I'd brought with me. They did use my photocopy of the application form, and I suspect that they wanted color copies. (As of a few days ago, our printer/copier is only good for black and white, having forgotten how to use the cyan ink.)
The clerk asked me whether I wanted to pick up my passport or have it mailed. I opted to pick it up rather than pay a fee to have it mailed, both to save a bit of money and so I don't have to worry about the passport being lost in the mail. (The round-trip subway fare is $4.80, versus I think $22 for having the passport mailed.) The clerk said that my passport should be ready in about six weeks. They will let me know when I can come pick it up, and I won't need an appointment, just show up any morning between 9 a.m. and noon.
It's a biometric passport, for which they scanned my index fingers. Interestingly, "Please bear in mind that due to privacy protection, the German Mission can only save the fingerprints for a brief period of time and will then delete them." I like the GDPR. My best guess about the fingerprint information is that it will be stored in some form built into the passport.
The clerk asked me whether I wanted to pick up my passport or have it mailed. I opted to pick it up rather than pay a fee to have it mailed, both to save a bit of money and so I don't have to worry about the passport being lost in the mail. (The round-trip subway fare is $4.80, versus I think $22 for having the passport mailed.) The clerk said that my passport should be ready in about six weeks. They will let me know when I can come pick it up, and I won't need an appointment, just show up any morning between 9 a.m. and noon.
It's a biometric passport, for which they scanned my index fingers. Interestingly, "Please bear in mind that due to privacy protection, the German Mission can only save the fingerprints for a brief period of time and will then delete them." I like the GDPR. My best guess about the fingerprint information is that it will be stored in some form built into the passport.
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Wikipedia says that scans of the fingerprints, along with the photo, are on the RFID chip but the fingerprints are protected with Extended Access Control measures.
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I'm not planning to emigrate, and I hope the only reason I'll need the German passport is if I ever want to visit Germany: now that I have German citizenship, I can't legally enter Germany on any other passport, but I can still use my American passport to visit any other EU country. But if I ever do need it, I want to already have it handy.
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