A buyer has questioned whether equine passports “are worth the paper they are written on” after discovering his horse’s passport had been tampered with – backing up calls for the need for digital equine identification.
The man bought the mare and on inspecting the passport more closely days later, he noticed that the horse’s year of birth had been altered with a pen to make her appear younger. A supplementary identification document with the passport showed a different age, and the man was able to confirm the correct age with a former owner and the passport-issuing organisation (PIO).
The man told H&H he is happy with the mare and does not wish to return her, but having reported the passport issue to Defra, Trading Standards and the PIO, he feels there is nothing to hold people to account who tamper with equine passports.
“Passports are supposed to be legal documents. It’s not worth the paper it’s written on if it’s been amended or changed – it’s like driving a car with an MoT that you’ve changed the date on yourself,” he said.
“I’m not looking for compensation, I just think it’s wrong that people can lie and tamper with a legal document. It seems no one has any authority over it, there’s no one stopping you from doing it.”
H&H reported that equine passports were discussed at the EU Parliament (news, 26 June) ahead of a revision of EU animal health law. The European Commission is evaluating whether the law, including rules on equine ID, is still fit for purpose. At this meeting World Horse Welfare said the paper-based system is “not fit for purpose”, and the FEI said it is “actively advocating to replace outdated passports with a digital system”.
The buyer said he would be in favour of digital passports.
“A digital system would be great, because it could be like the MoT system where when you are buying a car you can look it up,” he said
Jan Rogers of the British Horse Council told H&H an equine identification document has a legal function, but said “there are a number of challenges with the process as it stands”.
“Paper documents can be tampered with – some more readily than others – and tampering can be hard to spot. PIOs have an obligation to report documents that have been tampered with, but when horses change hands, many people don’t send them in for updating so the tampering can go unnoticed,” she said.
“Local authorities have legal powers to enforce equine identification legislation, but not a duty to do so, and since many are short of funds and have little equine expertise remaining on their teams, it is comparatively rare that they carry out any enforcement. Which brings us to the question of ‘how do we fix this?’.
“If horses were identified digitally rather than using paper documents – we know paper will still be required in some cases as well – the process would be easier for people to understand, easier to comply with, improve accuracy and enable better remote enforcement using patterns that emerge within the data.”
A Defra spokesperson told H&H all horses are required to be registered with the Government to help protect animal and public health.
“It is a legal requirement that they have a valid passport, and equine identification is enforced by the local authority,” said the spokesperson.
H&H asked the Defra spokesperson if there was any update on when the implementation of digital equine ID, and improvements to the Central Equine Database, will continue after this work was paused after the Labour Government took power last year.
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