[Article] Security feature built into latest passport

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/4618820?view=Eircomnet

Security feature built into latest passport
From:ireland.com
Friday, 10th December, 2004

The Government will begin issuing new passports today which contain a range of "high-tech" security features and whose applications will take less time to execute than the current passports.

The new 10-year and temporary passports are the product of a €26 million investment in a new passport printing system by the State over the past three years.

The system will centralise passport printing in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and should eventually cut the standard three-week timeframe that it takes to issue passports.

It is also intended to make it more difficult for fraudsters or terrorists to counterfeit Irish passports and use them to travel to other countries.

The new 10-year passport will incorporate a hard plastic data page, which has a laser-engraved photograph of the holder etched onto it and a matching perforated image to help security officers and border officials identify copies.

Other new security features include: optically variable ink, which changes colour when the passport is moved; a kinegram, a type of silver-lustrous metallised foil, that changes shape when it is moved; and some micro text.

The new temporary passport will carry a green cover and will be printed rather than handwritten. It will incorporate thermochromic ink that becomes invisible when heated or rubbed vigorously to make it more difficult to copy.

The new passports will not initially include a chip containing biometric data of the holder but the new passports have been designed to enable these chips to be inserted easily into the hard plastic data page in the future. It is understood the Minister for Foreign Affairs will bring a proposal to the Government shortly to begin embedding Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFIDs) with biometric data into passports next year or soon after.

RFIDs are microchips that can transmit information about a product that it is attached to, or a person who is holding it.

The Government is expected to recommend embedding a single biometric that will be based on facial recognition technology into new passports.

This will enable Irish citizens to continue to travel to the US without applying for a travel visa from October 2005, the date set by the US Government for visa waiver countries to embed biometric data into passports.

By the end of 2004, the Department of Foreign Affairs will have issued some 600,000 passports, the majority of which were issued in the summer months when people travel most.

Alun

It is understood the Minister for Foreign Affairs will bring a proposal to the Government shortly to begin embedding Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFIDs) with biometric data into passports next year or soon after.

Whilst I don't have any problem with making passports proof against fraud or copying, this is surely going a step too far? Will the data be encrypted somehow, or will anyone with an RFID tag reader be able to tell when I've passed by the reader antenna with my passport in my wallet?