Electronic U.S. Passports Coming In December
The U.S. State Department recently announced that electronic passports will start being issued in December. Each passport will be outfitted with a chip in its cover. The chip will contain all the information about the bearer held in current paper passports, along with a digital signature and digital photo; the former will be used to shield the stored data from doctoring and reduce the likelihood of photo substitutions, while the latter will permit biometric comparisons via facial-recognition technology.
The passport cover will also be equipped with technology designed to thwart unauthorized reading, while technology to prevent access to data until the document is opened and read electronically is also being considered.
The State Department said the e-passports will augment border security as well as streamline and further secure Americans’ identification for international travel. The passports will be issued exclusively through the State Department at first, while domestic passport agencies will be able to issue them by next October.
Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Lee Tien is concerned that e-passports may not be sufficiently protected from unauthorized data theft, an argument the EFF and other privacy groups raised in comments sent to the State Department earlier this year. “Given that they do seem to be going forward, they need to study and implement better privacy protection,” Tien remarked.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from Computerworld (08/11/05); Weiss, Todd R.
