Visas And International Travel

International travel has become more prevalent today than it was a century ago. Sometimes it is for business and sometimes it is for pleasure. Sometimes it is just to meet some friend or members of one's extended family. All those desires will continue to exist and hence international travel will continue between Utopian societies.

When someone visits some other country, there are three parties involved: the visitor, the visitor's home country and the host country that the visitor visits.

The ability to visit some other society is not a right; it is a privilege. Visitors either require an explicit permission to visit (like a visa) or they have an implicit permission due to an agreement between societies to always give their citizens the mutual privilege of visiting.

Regardless of the explicit or implicit permissions, currently, for international travel, we require a passport and possibly also a visa. There might be other requirements, like vaccinations.

How do citizens of one society determine that they are eligible to travel to another society? They simply check for that eligibility on the host society's website. This is discussed in the section "Travel Eligibility Check". Such a check may reveal that the citizen needs a travel visa; which is an explicit permission.

How do citizens of one society obtain a travel visa to another society? This is outlined in the section "Obtaining Visa". The process is really simple and requires minimal effort on part of the would-be-visitor.

Once a citizen is eligible to travel to another society, the citizen may travel by a plane. We will outline the interactions of a visitor at an airport in the section "Travel by Plane". The only thing that a visitor should carry is their phone. There are no other documents to carry.

For the duration of the time that a visitor visits some host country, the visitor gets some rights in the host country and some of the visitor's rights in the home country get suspended. This is outlined in the section "Rights and Responsibilities of Visitors". Would it surprise you to know that an international visitor's ability to use the Utopian Payment Model gets suspended?

When in a foreign society, a visitor will incur expenses. These will be discussed in the section "Spending as a Visitor". That section has two specific points to discuss. The first is that all spending by visitors in a host country is treated as an import in the home country and that has consequences. The second is to provide an outline illustration of a simple spending transaction that a visitor may undertake in a host country. This illustration applies to all spending by the visitor.

When visiting another society, it is possible that a visitor may lose or damage their phone. If it happens to a visitor, it is obviously a bad situation; since the visitor depends on that phone for their identification and all kinds of financial interactions. Obviously such visitors would need help in the host society. The host society provides such help and it is outlined in the section "Losing our Phone in a Foreign Country".

Travel Eligibility Check

Visiting another society is not a right; it is a privilege. Visiting another society requires permission. Just like in present times, some Utopian societies can have mutual agreements between them that eliminates an explicit permission for travel between those societies for their citizens.

It is possible that citizens do not know whether they have an implicit permission or whether they require an explicit permission. Utopian societies provide an easy way for determining whether we need an explicit permission or we already have an implicit permission. This is the "Travel Eligibility Check" feature that is available on each Utopian society's website.

Here are the outline steps about how the "Travel Eligibility Check" feature works:

We visit the host country's website, we click on the "Check Travel Eligibility" button, we provide our identification (using our phone) and authenticate ourselves (through our home society's financial infrastructure).

The website then asks us to confirm that we indeed want to check our travel eligibility to that society and we also give them permission to access information from our society for the purpose of "Travel Eligibility Check".

Once we confirm (using our phone), the host society's financial infrastructure obtains information about us from our home society. This is a small subset of our information and it may contain information about our medical conditions, vaccinations, prior law violations, and basic financial information like current and typical wealth. All this is to determine our overall level of self-sufficiency and health for travel purposes. What information to share for "Travel Eligibility Check" purposes is previously agreed upon by Utopian societies.

Having obtained this information, an algorithm determines whether we are eligible to travel or not. There are only two outcomes; either we are eligible or we are not eligible. If we are not eligible, then there will be a reason for that ineligibility. For every reason for ineligibility, either there is a way to eliminate that ineligibility or there isn't. All this information will be displayed as a result of the "Travel Eligibility Check".

If we are eligible, then this information is displayed. It is not sent to us because this is just a "check".

If we are not eligible, then this information is also displayed. The reason for ineligibility is also displayed. There are a few common reasons for ineligibility and one of them is us not having an explicit permission; that is we do not have a visa to travel to that society. This kind of ineligibility can be easily eliminated by obtaining the explicit permission; that is by obtaining the travel visa.

Even when one has a visa, there might be other reasons for ineligibility to travel. One of them might be an emerging requirement like "visitors must be inoculated against some newly emerging virus". If indeed this is the case, this reason for ineligibility is also displayed. We could eliminate this ineligibility by getting the vaccination.

For each reason for ineligibility, there may be ways to eliminate the ineligibility. The host society's website will indicate if the ineligibility can be indeed eliminated by taking some action. Obtaining a travel visa and getting vaccinations are just two such examples.

There can be a situation when some individual may not be eligible to visit the host society for some reason that cannot be eliminated. In this case, the website will display the reason and politely inform that an ineligibility based on that reason cannot be eliminated.

What we do with the results of "Travel Eligibility Check" is entirely up to us.

Obtaining Visa

In order for a citizen to get a visa, the citizen must first apply for it. In this section, we will use the term "applicant" to mean "a citizen who wishes to visit some other society and hence is applying for a visa". Here are the outline steps to apply for visa:

The applicant visits the host country's website.
The applicant clicks on the "Apply for Visa" button.
The applicant provides identification (using one's phone) and authenticates oneself (through the home society's financial infrastructure).
The applicant chooses the reason for visit from the provided options. There will be sufficient options to choose from. "Some Other Reason" will not be an option.
The website will confirm the applicant's identification with the applicant's home society's financial infrastructure.
The website will show the applicant that the applicant is applying for a visa along with the applicant's identification information and ask the applicant to confirm by asking a question like "Are you sure you want to apply for Visa?"
The applicant confirms by answering "yes" to the confirmation question.
The host country's website will send to the applicant a "visa application reference number" which can be used to check up on the status of the application. This reference number is a certificate as described in the Records and Accounting chapter.

When applying for a visa, the applicant does not provide any information other than the reason for visit. Why? Because the two societies have previously agreed on having a visa process and sharing information about the applicant is part of the agreement. Whatever information the two societies agree to share has to be a subset of the information possessed by the society's financial infrastructure; this subset of information could be an extensive subset. As a result of this kind of agreement, an applicant's application cannot be faulted for insufficiency or inaccuracy of data. Only the reason has a potential for doubt.

The host country takes the reason category, the shared information, and any other information that it may possess about the applicant, and algorithmically determines whether to accept or reject the application.

If the algorithm accepts the application, then the algorithm sends the acceptance to the applicant and the application process concludes successfully. The acceptance is in the form of a certificate and the certificate represents the visa. The visa certificate will contain the validity period of the visa and any other relevant information.

If the algorithm rejects the application, then the application is processed by some officer specializing in this particular situation. These officers evaluate the information and the algorithm's reasons for rejecting and take the final decision. The decision will either be a visa certificate or an application rejection certificate. The decision will be communicated to the applicant.

In normal times, applications will be accepted for processing immediately and almost all applications would be approved. When applications are approved by the algorithm, it will take a few minutes for the outcome to be known. Only when the algorithm rejects the application, an officer gets involved, and then it may take a few days to complete the evaluation of the application.

Travel by Plane

Let us consider a simple scenario of international travel by a citizen of some home country visiting some host country and using a plane as a mode of travel from his home country to the host country. Let's further assume that this citizen has met all eligibility requirements to travel to the host country. What will be the experience of such a citizen?

Having fulfilled all eligibility requirements, the citizen would buy a plane ticket. Let us say that the citizen bought the ticket from a local airline company within the home country. The ticket is actually a certificate issued by the airline to the citizen and the information associated with the ticket contains all information about the travel schedule. This certificate resides in the citizen's database as one of the records in one of the tables.

Between Utopian societies, for international travel, we will replace the passport with just our phone; as that device is fully capable of helping us to identify and authenticate ourselves. The travel visa is a certificate; it is just another record within the information known to our society's financial infrastructure and it can be accessed once our identification is known by the other society. Similarly our vaccination status is just another certificate within our records; we do not need to carry some document with us to show evidence for us being vaccinated. The ticket, yet another certificate, is just a record in the citizen's database and is also accessible.

Thus, in order to travel to another country, a citizen requires nothing other than his phone. There is no need to carry any other document.

Here are the interactions a visitor experiences at the departure airport:

The citizen shows up at the airport and reaches the checkin counter. There is an attendant present at the checkin counter along with a computer. The citizen shows his identification using his phone to the attendant's computer at the checkin counter. The attendant's computer asks the citizen to authenticate and that completes the mutual authentication. All this is a standard mutual authentication process.

The attendant's computer asks for the citizen's ticket. The citizen browses through the current airline tickets that he may have and are accessible through his phone and presses "Show Ticket" and that sends the ticket information to the attendant's computer. A choice needs to be made here by the visitor to establish the context of the travel. From now on, and during the travel, any checks requiring such travel related certificates are presented automatically to the right authority once identification and authentication completes.

The attendant's computer verifies the ticket and citizen's permissions to leave their own country and the permissions to enter the host country. Both countries check within their database and may communicate some previously agreed kinds of information with each other to search for any reason to deny permission for this travel.

If no reason to deny the travel is detected by both the home country and the host country, then the host country requests the home country to send the citizen's biometric information. This allows the host country to independently identify the citizen if the need ever arises. This will be of use if the visitor loses his phone when in the host country.

If no reason to deny the travel is detected, both countries give the tourist their departure permission, which are just certificates with a short expiry time sufficient for the traveler to complete the boarding of the plane. These certificates are sent to the travelers account, which are automatically accessed at any travel related check-points.

The attendant's computer then verifies that the visitor's account has those permission certificates and gives the visitor a boarding pass for the plane. This boarding pass is also a certificate that gets added to visitor's possessions.

The visitor then proceeds to the security check-point and identifies and authenticates themselves to the computer there. The computer checks the visitor's immediate travel certificates. Once that is complete, the security guards do their physical check and give the visitor one more certificate of security clearance.

The visitor then proceeds to their boarding gate and waits for boarding to start. Once boarding starts, travelers reach the entrance to the boarding gate. Again, there is a computer to which the traveler identifies and authenticates themselves, and the computer at the boarding gate checks all travel certificates for that traveler and confirms that the traveler is allowed to enter that specific gate as per the boarding pass and the security clearance certificate.

From then on the traveler enters the plane, takes their seat, relaxes and enjoys the flight.

Here are the interactions a visitor experiences at the arrival airport:

The plane lands in the host country and eventually docks at the terminal at some gate. Travelers (including visitors) exit the plane and reach the immigration counter.

The visitors identify themselves to the host country's computer at the immigration counter, then authenticate themselves (using their phone). The immigration computer communicates with the visitor's home country and verifies the authentication. It confirms the visitor's identification and associated privileges and also any visa certificates and any other information it has.

If all those checks indicate that the visitor is indeed allowed to visit the country, then it indicates that to the immigration officer. The immigration officer will, as a matter of routine, ask the visitor some questions. This conversation is intended as an opportunity for an immigration officer to raise "red flags" if deemed necessary. After that exchange the immigration officer also gives their permission. That results in the visitor receiving a final permission to enter (this is also a certificate that indicates how long the visit can be).

The visitors should check this final certificate on their phone and proceed to pick up their checked-in luggage. After picking the luggage, visitors exit the airport and do whatever visitors do.

In all this, there was never a mention of showing anyone a passport or any other paper document (like ticket, boarding pass, vaccination certificates, etc.) In fact, visitors did not have to take any effort other than carrying their phone. The phone provides the identification number and assists in authentication and thereafter all relevant information is accessed directly from the financial infrastructure's database. Note that the phone has no information stored on it except for the identification number of its owner.

Rights and Responsibilities of Visitors

When we visit other societies as tourists, we temporarily reside in that other society. Such residence most likely takes the form of a hotel or a motel or a hostel or some friend's guest room.

One could be a visitor in some other society for a long time and one could even live in a rented apartment or a rented house. As long as the host society allows it, we could potentially live in that society forever and still be officially classified as a tourist or a visitor.

What distinguishes a visitor from a citizen? The distinction is in terms of the visitor's rights and responsibilities in the society that the visitor visits and in the visitor's home country.

The key right that a visitor gets in the host country is the "right to live for a moderate amount of time". Since this is a conceptual discussion, we will leave as undefined the exact amount of time that the word "moderate" indicates.

When citizens visit other societies, they still continue being citizens of their home society and hence continue to enjoy almost all the rights and hence must fulfill all the responsibilities associated with their home society.

Specifically, ...

Visitors are responsible for abiding by all laws of the host society.

Visitors are not responsible for paying any kind of taxes in the host society.

Visitors are responsible for all kinds of taxes in their home society.

Within the host society, visitors do not get the following rights:

seek regular employment.
seek social employment.
seek help from the host society's Utopian Payment Model.
be an entrepreneur in the host society. That is, the visitor cannot become an owner of a proprietary organization or a private organization.
participate in the decision making of the society.
receive wealth by means of wealth redistribution.
receive wealth by means of monetary policy's implementation.

The home society does not view the citizen's foreign travel as an essential because it is not a need. This implies that the home society's Utopian Payment Model cannot be used to help in paying for any expenses that a citizen of the home society incurs during a foreign visit.

While a citizen is visiting another society, the citizen cannot have social employment in the home society.

The core idea behind setting up the rights and responsibilities as mentioned above is that a visitor cannot take any money from the host society and the visitor is not responsible for paying for the common good of the society.

A Utopian society collects taxes to pay for the common good of the society. These taxes are the responsibility of the citizens and citizens alone; visitors are not given any part of this responsibility. When citizens take on the responsibility of supporting their own common good, they get rights as well; some of the rights give citizens money directly; other rights allow them to earn money free from any competition from visitors.

Visitors do not get the right to "earn" or "gain" money from the host society and in return Utopian societies do not ask their visitors to pay taxes.

It is useful to keep in mind this distinction between a citizen and a visitor when reading the "Dual Citizenship" chapter, because that chapter is making distinctions between the rights and responsibilities of citizens in their primary home society and other home societies.

Visitors, while visiting a host society, will have to live and for that they will have to spend their money in the host society. A visitor could live in a host country and sustain their life using the wealth that they have in their home country. If the visitor is immensely rich, they can pay for everything that they desire or need. For anyone who is poor, being a visitor of some other society is not sustainable for a long time and such persons would return to their home society.

Because visiting another society is not an essential need, visitors do not have the assistance of the Utopian Payment Model from their home society. This may turn into a difficult situation for some visitors if they face a medical emergency or merely need medical assistance for their particular medical condition. Note that normal living expenses are just reasonable even when in another society, but medical expenses can get abnormally high.

Utopian societies are also interested in not letting a medical condition or medical emergency turn into a case for "humanitarian assistance". For this, host countries may require that all their visitors must have something in lieu of their society's Utopian Payment Model. Perhaps it is some kind of "Travel Insurance" that the visitor buys from some organization and then that organization takes on the responsibility of unexpected and exceptionally high expenses. While there is plenty to discuss in this subject area, in this version of this book, we will not discuss "Travel Insurance" any further.

Spending as a Visitor

This section has two goals. The first goal is to discuss that all spending by visitors in a host country is treated as an import in the home country and this has consequences. The second goal is to provide an outline illustration of a simple spending transaction that a visitor may undertake in a host country.

Regarding classifying a visitor's spending as imports, consider the following scenarios and their implications:

While we are situated in our country, if we buy something from another country, then this is obviously an import.
When we visit another country and buy something there and bring it back home, then this thing that we bring back home should be treated as an import.
When we visit another country and buy something there and consume it there, then how should this be treated? As an import or as a one-way money transfer?
If a would-be-visitor prepays all expenses in a host country, then that payment would be treated as an import as per the first scenario.
If a visitor somehow arranges to pay for all expenses in a host country after returning to the home country, then that payment would be treated as an import as per the first scenario.

Only the third scenario indicated above can cause a hesitation in classifying that spending as an import. But, considering all these scenarios, and if we have to be consistent, we should classify all spending in the host country as imports. Thus, expenses incurred by a citizen while visiting or touring another country are treated as imports.

As a consequence of visitor's spending being treated as imports and not as one-way money transfer, when visitors pay with their money in their home country for their spending in a host country, that spending results in a flow of some amount of gold from their home country to the host country.

Since all these purchases should be treated as imports, it also implies that those things that cannot be imported should never be allowed to be purchased. These include investments and real estate. Things that are classified as personal belongings and services can be purchased in the host country and these are indeed the kinds of things that a visitor would like to purchase.

Since all these purchases should be treated as imports, if the home country currently has import duties, then any money that a visitor spends in a host country is subject to import duties. This is very different from what happens currently, but, it is consistent with our society's desire to not spend its precious natural resources in an unbalanced way with the rest of the world, and import duties is the way to dissuade citizens from buying from foreign countries when we have a deficit of exports as compared to our imports.

Now let us see an outline illustration of a simple spending transaction of visitors in a host country. Imagine we are visiting a foreign country and we go to a restaurant. We enter the restaurant and the server provides us with a seat and then requests our ID.

We show our phone and the server shows a device that represents the restaurant (and the server as well). We both authenticate and now we both know each other's identity and also the restaurant's identity. Note that our phone deals with our financial infrastructure and the server's device deals with the host country's financial infrastructure and since both financial infrastructures can identify the IDs as belonging to some other country, they interact with each other to exchange the information about authentication.

Then, we place the order for food, it gets served, we enjoy the meal and finally the server presents us the bill using the same electronic device.

We scan the bill with our phone and review it. If there are any import duties that our country places on imports, then those charges will get added to our part of the transaction as those charges are to be paid to our society. After reviewing the bill, we authorize it.

Now the two financial infrastructures communicate and confirm the completion of the transaction. Money from our account is withdrawn and money is deposited in the restaurant's account after appropriate currency conversion. Both infrastructures record who owes whom how much gold equivalent of this transaction. This amount is eventually settled between the countries in aggregate at some predetermined frequency.

When our financial infrastructure deals with our payments for our spending as a visitor in some host country, it allows these payments only through the money account or through collective credit. Utopian Payment Model or social credit is not involved. Even when we are in another country, we can still conduct business in our own country as though we were there. This is no different from our present-day situation. Thus visitors can manage to keep enough funds in their money account or they can manage to retain a sufficient amount of unused collective credit.

Every spending by a visitor has a similar transaction.

Losing our Phone in a Foreign Country

In Utopian societies, when visiting a foreign country, if we lose our phone, then, from our current perspective, that situation is equivalent to us losing both our wallet and our passport. If we have brought with us a backup phone, then we could use that phone instead and it would be as though we still have our wallet and passport.

But, if we do not have a backup phone, then how should we deal with this situation?

At the time we left for this country, our country forwarded our biometric information to the country that we are visiting. This plays a role in our host country helping us out of this situation.

To deal with this situation, we would go to the nearest branch of the financial infrastructure of the host country. We would explain our situation to the employee there. The employee will direct us to the biometric scanning equipment at the local branch. This biometric equipment will scan us and identify us even when we don't disclose who we are. This is because the host country's financial infrastructure has our biometric information.

Now the branch employee will also note that we are a visitor to their country. So the employee will initiate the set of actions to provide us with a new phone. The employee will set up the phone as it is normally done for any local citizen, with the one difference that it informs our home country of such an occurrence and relays back to our home country that our phone is using that country's cryptographic security. Our home country in response marks our account as using cryptographic assistance from a foreign country and temporarily limits our in-person spending and restricts all our actions that we can take with our wealth using our phone.

Such phones have all the necessary features for identifying us and establishing secure connections with the host country's financial infrastructure. This new phone communicates with our home country's financial infrastructure only through the host country's financial infrastructure. But with this phone, we can continue with our visit, although with some limitations. These limitations can be removed if we visit our country's embassy, where they can reset this phone and secure it with our home country's cryptography or give us a new phone that is cryptographically secured by our financial infrastructure.

If we do not visit an embassy in the host country, then that is fine as long as we can continue the visit with our temporary restrictions and limitations. Once we return to our country, we need to take this phone to our branch of financial infrastructure so that they can reset it with our home country's cryptography. Alternatively after resetting this phone, we could use this phone as our backup phone, and get a new phone that is cryptographically secured by our financial infrastructure as our primary phone. Regardless, we will need to review all transactions that we conducted with the phone given to us by the host country.

When we receive the phone from the host country, we are charged some amount by the host country. Should this particular spending be treated as an essential spending?