ALL adults in Swindon applying for new passports must attend a 20-minute face-to-face interview at a new office to be opened in the town, it has been revealed.

The hunt is now on to find offices that can cope with an estimated 4,222 applicants every year, in a move to combat the growing threat of identity fraud.

The centre, which will employ two interviewers, is among 69 that will be set up across Britain to interview around 610,000 people every year wanting to travel abroad for the first time.

The Home Office believes that 75 per cent of passport fraud involves first time adult applicants, with around 1,500 attempted bogus applications made last year alone.

With 90 per cent of applications currently made by post, the system is wide open to abuse by fraudsters often filling in false forms abroad, ministers say.

Now the identities of all new applicants will be checked against the electoral roll and they will be quizzed in person about their current and previous addresses.

Critics say that the new system is the first step on the road to the introduction of identity cards alongside passports, from 2008.

Nick Clegg, pictured above, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "These are the first visible building blocks of the ID cards system.

"Very soon, millions of us will be required to attend these centres to provide fingerprints and iris scans."

From the end of 2008, 4.5m people will have to be interviewed each year as the scheme expands to include all adults renewing their passports.

A Home Office spokesman said: "There are people posting in as many bogus applications as they like, often from abroad which makes it very difficult to arrest them.

"People will be asked to confirm basic information about themselves which someone attempting to steal their identity may not know, such as their previous addresses."

The locations of the offices have been chosen to ensure almost everyone lives within a one-hour drive.

Centres will also be opened in Cheltenham and Bristol.

Applicants will normally be offered an interview within four days or the next day if a slot is available at an office further afield.

All offices will be open on Saturdays. Last December, the cost of an adult 10-year passport rose by £9 to £51 to fund the new background checks and face-scanning techniques.

The announcement follows a warning earlier this year from a Lib Dem peer that the Passport Office is "totally unprepared" to start interviewing.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno discovered that the 600 officials who will carry out the work have not yet been trained to conduct the interviews.

Lynda Warren, pictured left, of the Swindon branch of NO2ID, a group campaigning against ID cards, said: "This is expected.

"This will form the backbone of the national identity register.

"We are encouraging people to renew their passports this month which will save people money and give them 10 more years of freedom.

"Once you have been to one of these interview arenas your data will be entered on to this backbone of the national identity register.

"If you renew your passport now you get 10 more years of freedom and hopefully the idea of national identity cards will have been abandoned by then."

For information on renewing your passport go to www.renewforfreedom.org