On May 1, 1995, green covers were instituted on regular passports for the first time, and barcodes were inserted in passports in 2004. The new security-enhanced passport is a prerequisite to the issuance of new machine-readable passports which was first issued to the public on September 17, 2007. The Philippines used to be one of the few countries in the world that had not yet issue machine-readable regular passports although machine-readable passports for public officials have been issued since June 18, 2007.