Special Report on Anticounterfeiting

Biometrics-enhanced Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs), specifically electronic passports, were introduced three to four years ago, based on standards defined by the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO). The goals for issuing these documents include strengthening international border security to prevent illegal immigration and trans-border crime, and reducing the threat of identity theft. Since their introduction, over a hundred of ICAO’s 189 Contracting States have begun issuing ICAO-standard MRTDs and the remaining states have committed to do so by no later than April 1st, 2010.

The new passports contain a contactless chip with at least 32 kilobytes of memory, allowing them to store the passport holder’s biographic data, such as name, date and country of birth, and biometric data, currently a facial image. This data can be read from the passport using a contactless reader, which can read the chip from up to 10cm away.