Biometric passports

dahamsta · 17-10-2006 1:38am #1

Piece on Irish biometric passports on Sky News this evening. "Concerns" are mentioned but in passing, and no mention is made of security precautions. I realise it's Sky, but still. So, are security precautions included in these passports? What connectivity method do they use? Is encryptions used in storage, and transmission?

adam

robfitz · 17-10-2006 1:54pm

I'm not 100% sure but they are most likey RFID with some form of public key crypto.

Wikipedia Biometric Passport entry.
ICAO Machine Readable Travel Documents website.

pete · 17-10-2006 4:32pm

Any mention of how they actually work is notably absent from the PR bumpf on the forein affairs site, save for a mention of "preventing electronic eavesdropping", which would seem to indicate that there's a signal which can (theoretically) be intercepted.

Electricnews.net report describes them as "contactless".

RFID is a four letter word

parsi · 24-10-2006 8:59am

Engadget mentions them being "sheildless" http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/23/irish-getting-naked-e-passports/

robfitz · 17-11-2006 3:51pm

slashdot.org: British "Secure" Passports Cracked

Biometric passports

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