Slovak passport
The Slovak passport is issued to citizens of Slovakia to enable legal international travel. Every Slovak citizen is also a citizen of the European Union. The passport, along with the national identity card allows for free rights of movement and residence in any of the states of the European Economic Area and Schengen Area.
Every Slovak citizen is entitled to possess two passports of the same kind, if so desired. The second passport is valid for 5 years, while the fee remains the same. Passports in Slovakia are issued by the police.
History
Slovakia started issuing the current biometric passports on 15 January 2008. The biometric data consisted of the face picture. On 22 June 2009 the passports were changed to include second biometric data of the fingerprints. Because of the nature of biometric data acquirement, passports are now issued only directly to the passport owners.Controversy
After a new design for Slovak passports was revealed in 2024, it was discovered that the ornamental design featured in the documents was created by a Polish artist, Agnieszka Murphy, rather than a Slovak designer, which sparked a controversy.The pattern, which Slovak officials presented as a symbol of national pride was taken from a stock image library of Murphy’s work. Agnieszka Murphy sells her designs through image banks and doesn't receive information about buyers. As such she was completely unaware that her artwork had been used in the creation of Slovak passport. While Murphy stated that she is pleased her design was used, she also hoped that the Slovak Interior Ministry had purchased the appropriate license for her design.
Experts and groups like "Slovenský folklór bez fejku" criticized the design, stating that it was not an authentic Slovak pattern, but rather an imitation. This group posted pictures of buildings with authentic Slovak patterns to show the difference.
The discovery caused a backlash, which was also reported by Slovak television channel TA3.