Friday last week, Government Printing Office ordered millions of RFID chips from Infineon Technologies North America to be used for e-passports. Last Monday, US government began issuing the electronic passports with RFID (radio frequency identification) chips in Colorado. This is part of the US government’s plan to make all their passports electronic by October 2006. Earlier this year, State Department has already issued some passports with radio tags to diplomats as part of their pilot program.

The chips hold personal data such as name, sex, birth date, nationality and digitized photo. The e-passport is said to have special metallic shield, sensors and will use Basic Access Control, a cryptographic technique to prevent those with malicious intent to skim and tamper the data stored in the chips.

The first travelers from Colorado issued with the e-passports gladly accepted the idea of RFID-embedded passports, but not privacy and security advocates, who since the idea of creating RFID-embedded e-passports was introduced in the US, have already expressed great reluctance over issuing of e-passports. State Department is however confident that the new electronic passports equipped with RFID chips and improved security features will be safe from being skimmed, tracked, tampered or cloned.

By Khristine