News

Regulators working on machine-readable passports

July 21, 2003

LONDON -- The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has a working group hashing out standards for new machine-readable passports and other travel documents that will store biometric images on contactless smart-card chips.

According to a news report on Cardline, the organization's new technology working group is seeking advice from bank smart card experts. The group hopes to learn from the experiences of the growing number of banks in Europe and Asia issuing chip-based debit and credit cards that comply with international EMV (Europay/MasterCard/Visa) specifications.

ICAO wants tips on how member states can achieve global interoperability with new travel documents and how to keep data secure on the chips, according to the report.