Have you ever wondered: “what is the point of a scanned certified copy?”
It is, as I learned many years ago while delivering frontline administrative services as a baby bureaucrat, to stand in place of originals when the originals are unavailable. Many organisations, quite sensibly, demand certified copies when they need to keep a physical record of something that their clients need back, like passports or birth certificates. Certified copies also have a place when sending physical applications or documents through the mail, because you can’t reasonably expect someone to put their passport in the post. Certified copies are not better than originals. Certified copies stand in when the use of originals is impractical.
But what of a scanned certified copy? If anyone can tell me how a scan of a certified copy is in any way superior to a scan of an original, I’d love to hear it. Yet it seems that many bureaucrats hold this view, because the requirement for scanned certified copies pops up in places as diverse as the immigration department, pilot licencing bodies, piano competitions, and teacher registration boards. It seems there is no escaping this insane demand, which serves only to make these processes more difficult, and annoy busy JPs.
