Whichever country you are working, you should be aware of this rule that you should be the one holding your passport. This is your right and you should not surrender it to anybody for safekeeping. If you lose your passport because somebody kept it, it’s still you who will go to your country’s embassy to renew it, not your employer.
Also Read: It is Illegal to Work under a Visit or Tourist Visa, Convert it to an Employment Visa First
Would employer be able to keep employee passport? NO! Since holding passport in UAE is illegal. Actually, UAE employers keeping employees’ passports could be imprisoned and fined up to 20,000 AED! The UAE government authorities more than once expressed that employer ought not to hold an employee’s passport.
Avoid Tolerating Your Employer to “Safekeep” Your Passport because this is NOT their responsibility
In Kuwait, the Kuwait Labour Law of 2006 is truly outstanding in the locale and even the world – representatives just work eight hours out of every day (a few nations go up to 12 hours), get end reimbursement, three months’ pink slip and numerous different advantages.
However, there are still a few people who don’t apply the law as they ought to and can be unlawful in their treatment of workers. It’s truly sad that a few supervisors exploit the way that a few expats don’t know about their rights and the laws with respect to work, even though the law states that it is illegal for passports to be held be the employers.
So it is nothing unexpected that there is a common concern and the locale about the treatment of employees socially.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other countries in the Gulf region also mandates that the law that employers should not keep the passport of their employees.
Passports
A passport is a form of identification, typically authorized by the government of a country, which verifies its holder’s identity and nationality primarily for overseas travel specific purposes. Current standard passports may well hold data such as birth date, picture, signature and name of the owner. Several countries around the world move to include biometric information even in a micro-chip implanted somewhere in the passport, actually making this processor-legible and hard to falsify.
The travel document owner is qualified to come into the country that had approved the passport, although some passengers may not always be permanent residents with residence legal rights. A passport alone also does not develop any legal rights in the region visited or obligate the country concerned in any way, such as consular assistance. Certain passports certify that they are a diplomat or other official entitled to rights and protections, like complete immunity even from detainment or trial.
Keeping your passport safe
Your passport fills in as your identity card in many spots. It will recognize you as a legitimate citizen of your country. It will likewise help recognize you as either an individual on a work allow visa, a visitor on a vacation or as an understudy with a legitimate residency in a school or learning foundation.
You have to protect your international ID on the grounds that without it your rights may be constrained. You can be considered without a country and you have surrendered a portion of your rights. Should your international ID be stolen, harmed or lost, you have to answer to your closest consulate for help.
Employers Keeping Passport of their Employees
A few bosses employers that their employees submit and turnover their identifications and other critical records to them to the HR office. They more often say that this is for supervision purposes. They say this is for their insurance and yours also.
Passport Retention by Employers
Passport retention is illegal in UAE. Your passport is typically the property of the legislature that issued it (as referenced in the little print in your identification, which for the most part contains words to that impact), and every visa holder is in charge of its care.
The passport is an individual archive of its holder, and its final authority is the issuing government. It is an official record that confirms holders’ personality and citizenship enabling them to travel abroad under its security. Consequently, it is to a greater degree an individual report, to be kept possessing the holder.
Holding identifications is in fact illicit in the UAE, despite the fact that the training is across the board, particularly among organizations that contract substantial number of expat laborers.
In spite of the fact that it is alright to handover your passport to different authorities such as border control officials, embassies and consulates of other countries, police departments etc., around the globe if the circumstance requires it, you shouldn’t handover your identification to unapproved bodies. What’s more, your manager isn’t an approved body to hold your passport.
My boss says he will keep my passport inside an accessible place, would it be advisable for me to surrender my visa?
No is as yet the appropriate response. Regardless of whether you will approach your passport you ought not to surrender it to them. Leaving your identification intentionally in your organization assigned locker while you work is worthy. This is viewed as substantial for protection purposes since you hold use and responsibility for passport after your day of work is done.
When is it considered legal for my employer to keep my passport?
You can surrender your passport to your manager just if there is a legitimately recognized record that you both signed. The record would express that you deliberately presented your passport for protection and different conventions. The record ought to likewise express that you would be under the security of your boss and that your passport would be come back to you toward the finish of the settled upon date.
What are the laws that express that we ought not to surrender our identification to our boss
While this might be acceptable, we don’t recommend that you do this. It very well may be viewed as a surrender of your basic human right to freedom. It tends to be viewed as being put in obligated administration or intentional servitude.
On the off chance that your manager demands keeping your passports, gently tell them that the law states,”…it is not allowed for any party to detain the passport except by the official parties with a judicial order and according to the law. Consequently it will be considered as an illegal action to detain the passport…”
My manager still demands keeping my passport subsequent to advising him that I realize that it is illicit for him to do as such. What will I do?
Ask help from authorities such as your embassy and Ministry of Interior. Forcing you to surrender your passport can result in penalties from the government because it violates the succeeding regulation.
How can I assure my organization that I cannot leave all through the duration of my agreement?
There are different methods that you can try this. We do advocate that you stick with the explanation which you take into account that any violation for your end would possibly result to a ban from the country. Aside from the corresponding consequences in local legal guidelines.
Last Notion
It is unlawful for your manager to request the surrender of your passport not just on account of the overall laws. It is all the more significantly due to the association of your passport to your perceived human rights.
It does not depend if their cause is to make certain your compliance of the details of your agreement. It doesn’t rely if its miles deemed more secure with them. It does not count if it’s far enterprise policy. Preserve your passports with you, inside your attain at all times.
On no account ought to you give up your passport in your organization. While they’ll insist, you need to gently remind them that the triumphing regulation respects your human rights and retention of your passport is covered in it. Your passport is a part of your identity and also you do now not need to relinquish your identification to a person else.
Try to remind your agency that you are going to honor your settlement or in case you’re going to interrupt it, you will procedure and surrender nicely. On this state of affairs, you have to expose which you are honest together with your movements to gain your corporation’s self-belief.