Biometric-Based Passport In The Works
The State Department is creating a passport that possesses biometric technology to authenticate the identities of American citizens who travel overseas.
The new documents are intended to be more secure, and will also be more costly–an expense that will be passed on to passport owners.
State Department officials are looking for ideas from the biometric technology industry for making a tamper-resistant document with an incorporated circuit in a paper-based passport. The circuit would have a picture of the passport holder and some biographic information.
A main force behind the effort is a new law that mandates nations taking part in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program to dispense machine-readable passports and include biometric identifiers that meet international regulations.
The residents of 27 nations, primarily in Europe, would not be made to acquire U.S. visas if they have a chip-embedded passport. The State Department’s information request is due July 28. It seeks dependable chips that can last for the passport’s decade-validity period and survive the demands of overseas travel, such as changes in temperature.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from Federal Computer Week (07/14/03) Vol. 17, No. 23, P. 8; Hasson, Judi.