Passport Smart Cards: We Never Forget a Face

Hope you like your passport photo. The next generation of travel-identity documents will contain a “smart chip” that will store a digital version of your potentially unflattering passport photo forever.

In addition to the facial recognition data, the chips may store standard passport information such as name, birth date, place of birth, gender, date of issuance, passport number and citizenship, according to Kelly Shannon, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Facial recognition scanners at points of entry to the United States and other countries will be able to read the contents of the chip, then compare the digitized photo to the face of the person presenting the passport.

“It’s a way to make sure the face on the passport is the same as the person in front of you,” Shannon says.

The Bureau of Consular Affairs is rushing to comply with new legislation, including the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002. Section 303 of this law requires that countries that have bilateral agreements with the United States for visaless travel certify that they will have a biometric visa program in place by October 2004.

The United States is going to establish similar requirements for its own passports. To integrate biometrics into passports and other travel documents, the Department of State will follow a blueprint released by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Passport holders would not need to have their faces scanned to obtain the passport. Instead, the passport photo could be used to generate the facial recognition data. However, all countries, eventually including the United States, will have to comply with whatever the ICAO decides to use as a standard.