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The next generation passport

Cases of passport forgery are rising and the Government of India has released the country’s first electronic passport with biometric features, reports Malabika Sarkar

Securing passports is an ongoing endeavor. Forgery is a constant threat, which can be controlled by introducing machine assisted identification features. Face or iris recognition and fingerprint checks via biometrics are a solution to this knotty problem. As biometric features cannot be stored in conventional passports, the introduction of a chip on a passport has become essential.

The rear cover of the e-Passport has a small silicon chip that’s smaller than a postage stamp, as well as an embedded rectangular antenna. The written specification of the product has been determined with a view of maintaining interoperability with other important documents such as your driver license, vehicle registration, health card etc.

NIC, IIT Kanpur and smart card vendors worked together on this project for GoI.

On the conditions of strict anonymity, a senior official with the Ministry of External Affairs talked to Express Computer about the new initiatives the Government is taking with regard to the e-Passport. The official said, “The Indian Government has taken a strong proactive approach by introducing the e-Passport. This new agenda (e-Passport) is in accordance to the physical, technical and security guidelines set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization and also comparable to those issued by the rest of the world.” 

The operating system used by other countries is standard. However, NIC with the help of IIT has introduced a specific OS known as SCOSTA- CL, which is the extended version of Smart Card Operating System for transport application, for the e-Passport project. This while complying with ICAO guidelines, is specific to India, and it bestows security advantages.  

The rationale

ICAO has been contemplating the use of some mechanism for storing additional information about applicants on their passports. Technologies such as 3D Bar Codes, magnetic stripes etc. were considered but were never used, as there were limitations to these technologies.   

With the advancement of chip technology, ICAO began serious deliberations on the use of a microprocessor for securing the passport. The first generation of this chip allowed a reasonable amount of data storage and it was quite secure from manipulation. 

Britain introduced e-passports in March 2006. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the United States demanded that other countries adopt biometric passports as well. Many of the 9/11 bombers had travelled on fake passports. In the aftermath of this tragedy, USA put tremendous pressure on ICAO and the world community to hasten the standardization of e-Passports. Although work on chip-based passports had been going on for some time, it was only after the disaster that whole process started moving at great speed. 

The decision maker on the standardization and guidelines for all kind of travel documents (including e-Passports) for the whole world is ICAO. As far as Indian e-Passport is concerned, there is an implementation committee headed by the Joint Secretary, CPV Division, Ministry of External Affairs.   

The participants

The development has been done by different bodies working together to a common goal. The technical committee consisted of members from the MEA, NIC, IIT, ISP, MHA, forensic experts and the Smart Card Forum of India. It took the decision to use smartcard technology after evaluating the products offered by various potential suppliers, attending various conferences and doing its own research keeping in mind India’s needs as well as the ICAO’s guidelines.

ICAO made the recommendation and the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India decided to go ahead with the implementation. As soon as the Ministry decided to go for a hi-tech passport, the technical committee met several times to finalize the specifications and to work out the implementation strategies. It is decided to extend the existing SCOSTA, which is presently in use for MNIC and the transport projects in India. NIC & IIT Kanpur were given the responsibility to work out the software specification and the testing. The ISP Nasik was given the responsibility of manufacturing the e-passport. Initially prepared e-Passports are tested internationally for interoperability.

The official, said, “The e-Passport will have all of a person’s biographical data printed in a machine readable format on the data page, it will also hold the same information on the chip along with biometric information of the passport holder. The chip is very secure and so far, no one has been able to manipulate the data on the chip. An e-passport makes the document machine-readable making the passport not only tamperproof but also enabling quick processing at airports. ” 

As immigration authorities around the world have to read these passports, interoperability of the product is perhaps the most important aspect. Hence, TAG-MRTD under ICAO, which is an UN body, finalized the readability specification. India is also a member of TAG-MRTD.

The first diplomatic e-Passport was released by the EAM to the Honorable President Pratibha Patil on 25 June 2008. About 30,000 diplomatic or official passports will be issued during the next one year. The e-Passport is initially being introduced for the category of country diplomats and Government officials. Down the line, e-Passports will be issued to the public by end 2009. However, existing passports will continue to be valid until they come up for renewal.

Benefits galore

Machine assisted identification is always better than human oversight which is always subject to error under stressful conditions. It will help enhance the security of passports and in the fight against terror. It will help easily authenticate the genuineness of a passport and help in identifying if the holder of the passport is the same person to whom the passport was issued originally.   

The passport holder will also benefit by way of ease and speedy clearance at Indian as well foreign immigration checkpoints. This e-Passport is meant for any Indian citizen who is eligible to hold an Indian passport. So far, nearly 40 to 50 countries have already implemented or are in the process of implementing the e-Passport project worldwide.

During the trials, the e-Passport was tested in the US and proved better than the American documents, surprising the authorities.

Besides having entire personal information, including the fingerprints, of the person carrying such passport, it will also help the authorities keep track of the movement of the persons. The whole initiative is aimed at curbing misuse of passport, including through impersonation and make immigration process easier.

The official further added that they would also like to introduce e-Visa in the near future. However, for this the International Civil Association Organization will have to issue its guidelines and specification first. The Indian public will have to wait for a while now for the whole development to take place.

However, it is also important to look at the ground reality of security. An RFID passport designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at the airports. On this, the official commented that cloning would be a difficult feat to accomplish and hence the Government would look into the matter.

The Government is hopeful that by end 2009 it will be in a position to issue e-Passports to the public. In the next phase, it would like to ensure that passports that only e-Passports are issued from all Indian posts abroad. In case the biometric factor does not match, it will alert the authorities to a potential case of forgery. This is a good effort to check the misuse of passports. We hope that the e-Passport will bring some relief to the Indian Government along with saving time at the immigration counter.

malabika.sarkar@expressindia.com