Biometric Passport TechnologyBiometric passports have been touted as cutting-edge technology that is able to prevent travel document forgery using a secure authentication process. These types of passports carry digital data about the physical characteristics of their respective holders, such as face shape and fingerprints. Biometric passports cannot be changed because information can only be able to be written to it once. The biometrics automates this process by verifying an individual's identity based on their physical characteristics. Biometric passport is one such technological advancement that will spread across the world soon and any country that has not adopted it, be alienated from rest of the world. Obtaining a biometric passport takes a lot longer to get than normal passports. There is a "emergency passport" program, but these are not biometric, and thus not suitable for travel to the USA. The biometric passport is believed to be as a foolproof method to stop passport cheats in their tracks, by using a combination of a paper and electronic identity document that used to authenticate the citizenship of travelers. Further advances in the area of biometrics technology are growing all the time. Biometric passports are printed documents that not only include conventional security feature but also contain a special chip, where in Belgium this chip contains the same data that is printed on the inside of the paper version of the passport. Biometric passports are in the current state of being considered, developed or tested by a growing number of governments in Europe and around the world. In countries that participate in the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP), this trend will continue because of US demands to start issuing their citizens with biometric passports before October 26, 2005. Congress originally mandated that by October 26, 2004 all countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program must have a program in place to include biometric identifiers into their passports that meet International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards. Congress extended the deadline for the biometric passports by a year to October 26, 2005, in order to give the VWP countries the necessary time to develop them. Information on the chip is stored in encrypted form on an RFID tag, with the password as a combination of information written on the passport, so that anyone with access to the passport will be able to read the chip. RFID technology is the precursors to a world in which billions of networked objects and sensors will report their location, identity, and history. Future advances in biometric passports are already being developed in Europe and the US partly in response to this situation; in fact the US has announced that a biometric will shortly be required for foreign nationals entering the US. |