Passport Going Hi-Tech

By next year you can expect to have a new hi-tech passport in your hand. Starting near the end of this year and progressing through next, the new generation of passports issued by the U.S. State Department will be electronic.

E-passports, as they are called, are not to be confused with airline e-tickets, which are merely a piece or pieces of paper. E-passports will look much the same as today's machine-readable passports with the familiar gold-embossed blue cover.

The State Department issued a final rule October 25 for the implementation of new electronic passports. The so-called e-passport will come into effect October 2006, requiring all new US passports to include a radio frequency ID (RFID) chip that can transmit personal information, including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and a digitized photograph of the passport holder. The chip will be 64KB in size to leave room for additional biometrics data to be added in the future. The e-passport also will incorporate codes and additional anti-fraud and security features. With today's thin technology, the chip, coil and metallic security shield will not add any detectable thickness to the cover.

The screening process for the e-passport can take as little as 5 seconds. An immigration officer will hold an e-passport over a reader to view digital information embedded in the chip on a monitor to make sure it isn't altered.

For application or renewal of your passport, read our posting of July 5th, 2005