Chip passports by October
ComputerWorld NZ
20 January, 2004
Original article copyright
2004, and can be found at
ComputerWorld NZ
Stephen Bell,
Wellington
Confronted with a US requirement for travellers
into the country to have a digitised version of their photograph for
cross-checking, Passports (NZ), part of the Department of Internal Affairs, has
moved quickly. It expects to have the required microchip embedded in new
passports by the deadline date of October 26 this year.
The chip, able to store 32KB of data, could be embedded in the cover of the
passport or in a plastic container embedded in a dedicated page, says passport
office manager David Philp. The information will be scanned at US ports and
compared with the regular passport photograph.
US authorities have imposed the requirement — part of the Homeland Security
Initiative — on all countries with a visa waiver scheme for short-term travel
(less than 90 days) to the US. Passports issued before October 26 will not have
to be equipped with a chip, says Passports (NZ) spokesman Tony Wallace.
Development and embedding of the chip is being done as an internal project of
the organisation, which is currently debating whether and how much to compress
the photographic data to get it into the 32KB space. Most of the appropriate
standards have already been defined by the International Civil Aviation
Organisation (ICAO) and US authorities to allow the chip to be scanned using
various technologies.
Original article copyright
2004, and can be found at
ComputerWorld NZ
Afollow-up article in the Dominion Post on
12 April, 2004 reports on the
passport upgrade going to tender.
