As reported on the Times of Malta today, the Passports Office has started issuing biometric passports, providing holders with a more secure travel document. At the moment, the new passports contain the same information as the old ones, with the difference that the information is held in a more secure manner in a chip embedded in the document. In the future, the chip will also carry an image of the holder's fingerprint.
(The minister) Dr Gatt said the introduction of the new passports was also an important step by Malta to meet US requirements for eligibility to the visa waiver programme.
As some of the people correctly pointed out on the original article, that there already are some hacks out and about - More can be
here however the EU is also counteracting. A recent article on
The Register talks about 'second generation' electronic passports and the measures the EU are taking to ensure the encompassing security.
This second-generation framework, known as Extended Access Control (EAC), is intended to combat impersonation as well as forgery through the addition of biometrics such as a finger print or iris scan. This biometric data is then digitally signed and included in an ePassport.
The Register (19 Sept 2008) continues to discuss testing times ahead, but the race and challenge between them being cracked and security has only just begun --- putting to question the overall security design. Needless to say, whilst some are arguing the overall costs of this whole new implementation, this is the way forward and there is no going back. We'll have to wait and see what happens next (and I hate saying that..)
More information on the hack can be found
here (1st Oct 2008)
Relevant links:
Times of Malta Source
Original Times of Malta article
More official news from Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Biometrics Deployment of EU-Passports Specification can be found here
