Accessibility statement for Cancel a lost or stolen passport

This accessibility statement applies to the cancel a lost or stolen passport service.

This website is run by Her Majesty’s Passport Office. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours and contrast levels
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • the line height or spacing of text cannot be modified
  • some elements and tables across the service may not work well with screen readers
  • some error messages do not provide accurate or descriptive information relevant to the question or information asked and could be misleading
  • radio buttons aren’t visually highlighted across the service making it harder for some users tabbing through the service to know where they are on a page

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

It will help us if you can tell us what assistive technology you use.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

If you are in Northern Ireland and are not happy with how we respond to your complaint you can contact the Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland who are responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’) in Northern Ireland.

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a sign language translator or other support to help you complete the service in person.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Her Majesty’s Passport Office is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

This service is currently under development and we aim to address these issues as we redesign and rebuild.

  • parts of the service contain inconsistent styling and functionality. Some pages within the service have inconsistent heading usage, for example, the ‘Check your answers before continuing’ and ‘Thank you for your help’ pages use different heading hierarchy. This fails WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A).
  • some stylesheets are unusable when stylesheets are disabled, for example, the drop-down selection for ‘Please enter the country where your passport was lost or stolen’ on the ‘What happened to your passport’ does not work and shows an error when a country is selected. This fails WCAG 4.1.1 Parsing (A).
  • the service does not provide adequate instructions and signposting for users. For example, there is no service name in the header across the service potentially disorientating users on what service they are using. This fails WCAG 2.4.2 Page Titled (A).
  • some of instructions and titles within the service are ambiguous and may be confusing to users. The ‘Thank you for your help’ page has the page title as ‘GOV.UK’ rather than being relevant to this service. The ‘Check your answers before continuing’ page contains unclear instructions for users to confirm their details. This fails WCAG 2.4.2 Page Titled (A), 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (AA) and 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (A).
  • form fields are inappropriately marked up across various pages of the service, for example, radio buttons are marked up incorrectly across the service. The ‘What happened to your passport’ page date fields are missing a fieldset legend and ‘What happened to your passport’ page is missing a form label in the input fields. This fails WCAG 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (AA) and 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (A).
  • some form pages are unclear on what information users need to provide and some pages have inconsistent form elements. For example, ‘Email address’ and ‘Your phone number’ fields on the ‘How to confirm your passport has been cancelled’ page has unclear information for users. The ‘What was your address when you applied for the passport?’ has inconsistent usage of question marks and the call to action on ‘Check your answers before continuing’ page is ambiguous. This fails WCAG 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (AA).
  • the service does not give a warning to users before timing out. The service gives users 24 minutes until the service times out. This fails WCAG 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable (A).
  • some error messages across the service are unhelpful. In various pages the errors do not match the question, for example, on ‘Who is the passport holder?’ page the error message ‘Please choose whose passport is being cancelled’ is shown. In other pages error messages do not give adequate instructions to the user: the ‘Passport number (if you know it)’ field does not let you enter a passport number with letters and less than 9 characters, displaying errors such as ‘British passport numbers only contain numbers.’ and ‘British passport numbers are 9 digits long. If you don’t know your passport number you can leave this empty.’. Older passports contain letters, and less than 9 alphanumerical characters, so some users are unable to use this service. This fails WCAG 3.3.1 Error Identification (A) and 3.3.3 Error Suggestion (AA).
  • pages within the service do not behave as expected for different page orientations. Country input fields on ‘What happened to your passport’ page requires users to scroll down the entire page on a mobile landscape orientation. The ‘Check your answers before continuing’ page displays page links inconsistent locations across the page. These may be particularly difficult for users on mobile or tablet devices. This fails WCAG 3.2.3 Consistent Navigation (AA).
  • there is no visual highlighting to show focus on checkboxes and radio button controls which may make navigating the site difficult using a keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible (AA).
  • content is not usable when you enlarge the text. Text size on any of the pages does not respond to changing the Web Browser’s default font size. This can make it difficult for some users to navigate through the service. This fails WCAG 1.4.4 Resize Text (AA).
  • pages do not behave as expected when zooming in. The ‘Check your answers before continuing’ page is only able to zoom up to 175%. This can make it difficult for some users to navigate through the service. This fails WCAG 1.4.10 Reflow (AA).
  • certain parts of the service do not have multiple ways to navigate through them. There is no search bar in the Start, ‘Cookies’, ‘Terms and conditions’, and ‘Thank you for your help’ pages. The search bar does not behave as expected, searching within GOV.UK, not the service itself. This may disorientate users. This fails WCAG 2.4.5 Multiple Ways (AA).
  • navigation behaves inconsistently within certain journeys. Section labels in ‘A child under 16’ and Third-party ‘Another adult’ journeys jump from section to section inconsistently. This may disorientate users within these journeys. This Fails WCAG 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (A) and 2.4.3 Focus Order (A).
  • the table on the ‘Check your answers before continuing’ page is styled incorrectly, this could potentially be difficult to navigate by screen readers. This Fails WCAG 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (A).

Other Issues:

  • there are no back buttons on the service. Using the browser button, users with validation errors will have to resubmit the form and refill certain parts of the form again. This fails WCAG 3.3.4 Error Prevention (AA).
  • we believe it is possible to navigate across the service using a screen reader however there are improvements that could be made to the markup including headings, form controls and errors on form submit pages throughout the service. Improvements can be made to the nested code to reduce noise.

Disproportionate burden

At this time, we have not made any disproportionate burden claims.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have reviewed and updated the service with the latest components as recommended by the GOV.UK Design System. The changes were published on 31 October 2023.

Following this service update, we will review the service’s accessibility, and update this statement with any relevant changes.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 September 2020.

It was last reviewed on 18 October 2023.

This website was last tested on 14 September 2020 and was checked for compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA. Testing was carried out internally by the Home Office.

We tested the service based on a user’s ability to complete the cancel a lost or stolen passport journey. The journey was chosen on a number of factors including usage statistics, risk assessments and subject matter.