According to the announcement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on October 25, all new passports issued by this country from October 2006 onwards will be equipped with an RFID chip to store the user’s information and digital photo.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will begin testing this program next December with government officials carrying diplomatic passports during official trips. The electronic passport will be equipped with a 64Kb RFID chip to store essential personal information. Other modern technologies such as fingerprint recognition and biometric scanning will be added to the RFID chip in the near future.
The plan to implement and apply electronic passports is not only being adopted by the United States but also by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Kingdom, and Germany. ICAO, a UN organization, has previously announced that it has developed international standards for electronic passports to store information such as name, nationality, gender, date of birth, place of birth, and digital photo.
The United States will also use the international electronic passport specifications of ICAO to create a unified standard. This specification utilizes a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) framework to protect data against unauthorized access through electronic signatures.
VH
