Two Democratic US senators have formally asked Uncle Sam’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to get its act together on electronic passports. In 2005, America began issuing passports with implanted machine-readable RFID chips that contain the traveler’s personal information. This data is cryptographically signed so that if the information is later altered, these changes can be detected and stern questions asked. Also, counterfeit passports should be obvious because they won’t have a valid digital signature. Two years later, the US government ordered countries in its visa waiver program to also embed this chip technology in their own passports.
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ORIGINAL SOURCE: The Register
