It Happened Again: Child In UK Initially Denied Passport Over Copyright

It happened again and it has to stop. Back in 2014, we talked about how a UK woman had trouble getting her passport approved because her middle name was “Skywalker” and the UK’s passport office for some reason thought that Disney would have to give its permission to have the passport approved. There is nothing about a passport that would bring copyright into play, of course, and the passport office was simply wrong. But then it happened again a decade later, this time to a woman who named her daughter Khaleesi, after the Game of Thrones character. In this case too the passport office initially informed the woman that it couldn’t process a passport for her daughter without permission from Warner Bros. After this all made news internationally, the passport office reversed course and processed the passport application.

That was only a few weeks ago. And now it’s happened again, this time once again over someone who’s middle name is “Skywalker.”

Christian Mowbray, 48, is a serving soldier in The Corps of Royal Engineers at the Rock Barracks in Sutton Heath, near Woodbridge. He and his wife Becky, a former serving soldier, booked a holiday to the Dominican Republic at the end of October, the family’s first since 2014 due to their demanding work schedules and Becky’s struggles with Complex PTSD.

However, when they tried to secure a passport for their youngest child, Loki Skywalker Mowbray, the Home Office refused it on copyright grounds, telling the family to either change his name or get permission from the copyright owner, Disney.

Once again, this is nonsense. There is nothing about copyright law in the UK that somehow gives naming rights and restrictions for the children of private citizens to companies like Disney. And if someone really couldn’t get a passport because of a their given name, that’s exactly what would be occurring. And the idea that two soldiers, one retired, would have to put up with this nonsense from their own government is a shame.

Now, as you’d expect, the Home Office eventually corrected itself and began processing the passport. But once again, just as we said the last time this happened, that agency needs to educate its workforce to keep this from happening again. If for no other reason than it must be really embarrassing for them.