Myth #1 – The e-Passport replaces border officials
Myth #2 – The e-Passport was introduced for facilitation reasons
Myth #3 – The e-Passport was introduced in response to 9/11
Myth #4 – The e-Passport was introduced because the RFID industry wanted sales
Myth #5 – It was introduced as a plot by the UN to regiment the world via biometrics
Myth #6 – All countries must be issuing e-Passports by 2014
Myth #7 – The e-Passport was introduced by “a bunch of bureaucrats
Myth #8 – The e-Passport chip data should be secret
Myth #9 – Contact cards are more secure
Myth #10 – The e-Passport chip radiates personal information continuously
Myth #1 – The e-Passport replaces border officials
E-Passports are not designed and are not intended to supersede the judgment of border officials. We have always trusted humans to intervene and determine state admittance and this technology is only here to assist them. The e-Passport is a traditional passport with an electronic chip. It still has the traditional security features—watermarks, special inks, etc., that are checked by the border official. The same official is trained to look for signs of unease in the owner that might indicate a hidden intent. And when an automated border control scheme is operating, you will find a border official overseeing it. Anything other than a perfect match of the biometric, or any question about the security of the document, will result in an instant referral to that border official.
Myth #2 – The e-Passport was introduced for facilitation reasons
The reasoning behind this myth goes something like this: with e-Passports governments can introduce automated border control to facilitate the passage of travellers through their borders. This leads to a saving of money, but also a lowering of standards as somehow criminals fool the biometric systems with plastic surgery, contact lenses or rubber fingertips. The whole system becomes a “glaring security breach”. As noted in the introduction, the e-Passport was primarily introduced to combat forgery. However, a direct consequence of the more secure passport, with its definitive link to its owner, is that automated border control is made possible. Surveying the systems being introduced, the overriding feature is that they are all being established with careful regard to security, which is paramount. For example, tests for ‘liveness’ are common to counter attempts to fool the system. As stated in Myth #1, e-Passports do not supersede the judgement of border officials.
Myth #3 – The e-Passport was introduced in response to 9/11; or the U.S. Government designed it for their visa waiver program
ICAO commenced work on the e-Passport in 1998, well before the tragic events of 9/11 or the subsequent changes to the U.S. visa waiver program. However, the e-Passport is well suited to the increased demands for security in the current situation.
Myth #4 – The e-Passport was introduced because the smartcard/RFID industry was desperate for sales
The NTWG spent several years analysing the different ways that various biometrics could be incorporated into the e-Passport. The first step was to decide on the biometric. The facial image was the obvious front runner as photos were already present in passports and were acceptable to all countries. It must be remembered that the passport has to acceptable in all countries, across a wide range of cultures. Some countries regard fingerprints with suspicion and would never incorporate them in the passports of their citizens. Mandatory facial biometrics, with optional fingerprint and iris components, were eventually selected after an exhaustive study. The next step was to consider how to incorporate the biometric in the passport given that the data requirement was large: at least 10K bytes. This immediately disqualified some technologies, such as the magnetic stripe. Other technologies were proprietary, and thus not acceptable. The two-dimensional bar code was an early favourite, but was found not to store enough information. The contact chip, as found in credit and phone cards, was also considered, but the difficulty there was attaching the contacts in the paper passport. The short-range proximity radio-frequency chip was finally selected because it stores enough information (typically 75K) and can easily be integrated into the passport. The NTWG wisely specified the ISO/IEC 14443 standard as the basis for the contactless chip. It was only after that decision that the smartcard industry became involved.
Myth #5 – The e-Passport was introduced as a plot by the UN (or ICAO, or the U.S. Government, etc.) to regiment the world by gathering biometrics
Conspiracy theories are often difficult to debunk, as they usually rely on no evidence. Passports, however, are issued by a country to its citizens to enable their international travel. Most e-Passports contain the facial image as the only biometric—no change from the traditional passport. e-Passports that contain fingerprints or iris patterns have increased encryption that severely restricts who can read them. Countries have always collected the primary biometric, the photo of the face and more often than not have a database of these photos to detect people who apply for passports in other names. These days, most countries have privacy laws that restrict the dissemination of biometrics to other organizations; certainly, international interchange does not happen. Other countries do collect biometrics, facial images or fingerprints, to satisfy their security requirements when you enter, but these are voluntary—if you don’t want to have your biometric collected by another country, simply do not go to that country.
Myth #6 – All countries must be issuing e-Passports by 2014
As a UN Organization, ICAO sets the international standard for passports under the authority vested to it under the Chicago Convention of 1947. Most countries have machine-readable passports which contain recommended minimum security standards. ICAO has mandated that all 190 countries that are signatories to the Chicago Convention must be issuing machine-readable passports by April 1, 2010. There is no requirement for countries to issue e-Passports. Most countries, however, recognize the benefits of e-Passports and it is expected that by 2010 over 100 countries will in fact be issuing them.
Myth #7 – The e-Passport was introduced by “a bunch of bureaucrats making decisions about technologies they don’t understand”
The ICAO NTWG consists of government officials who are almost all either involved in passport production or border control, with many years of practical experience. Some are encryption experts. The NTWG is supported by technical experts from the International Standards Organization (ISO). Under the ISO/IEC rules, members of the ISO technical committees give their professional expertise and do not represent the interests of their companies. The ISO representatives that attend the NTWG meetings are a range of chemists, engineers, physicists, IT experts, and lawyers. They work for a wide range of companies, including security printers, reader manufacturers and software developers. As well, the NTWG has a number of observers, from Interpol, IATA, Airports Council International, etc. It would be true to say that the NTWG is definitely not “a bunch of bureaucrats” and that the e-Passport technologies are very well understood—especially as they apply to travel documents.
Myth #8 – The e-Passport chip data should be secret
Some of the more sensational newspaper stories over the past few years have involved journalists, with the assistance of “security researchers”, reading the data from a passport’s chip. Typically they get a copy of the ICAO standard, implement the reading process, and then seem surprised when it works. This is exactly how the e-Passports are meant to work. Otherwise, border officials in other countries would not be able to read them. To prevent unauthorized reading, ICAO specified an optional Basic Access Control (BAC), which most countries have implemented.
Myth #9 – Contact cards are more secure
This comment is usually made by people objecting to the radio frequency technology, in particular, the potential for interception of the radio transmissions “eavesdropping”) or for unauthorized access. However, contact cards have also been intercepted; one only has to look at the inventiveness of criminals who try to capture credit card details at ATMs. As well, the NTWG investigated eavesdropping and found that data could be intercepted elsewhere in the computer system (eg the radio waves from the USB link, modulation of the power supply). The problem of course is a system-wide one and must be treated as such. It is not peculiar to radio frequency technology alone. The incorporation of shields in the e-Passport and the introduction of Basic Access Control and Extended Access Control have made the problem of eavesdropping and unauthorized access practically non-existent.
Myth #10 – The e-Passport chip radiates personal information continuously
The e-Passport chip is powered by the electromagnetic field of the reader; it has no battery or other power source of its own. Therefore when an e-Passport is not close to a reader and powered-up it cannot radiate information. Even when the chip is powered it only responds to commands sent from the reader and the data is protected by the Basic Access Control encryption, so it cannot be eavesdropped upon. The e-Passport chips are large and power-hungry and have to be powered by the electromagnetic field of the reader. Typically an e-Passport will operate at 4 to 10 cm (2” to 4”) from a conforming reader. Of course, it is possible to build nonstandard readers with increased power and large antennas, but this is a situation of diminishing returns. Our analysis of the reports of distance reading indicates that practical equipment reaches a limit of about 75 cm (30”). Doubling or tripling the power might result in a small percentage of distance gained, but there is a practical limit.