IT to make more secure passports in Germany

The German government will use highly secure chips to make counterfeiting and unauthorised use of its passports virtually impossible. The German Passport Office intends to issue the new passports from November 2005.

In the new electronic passport, the printed information about the bearer’s identity such as name, date of birth and photo, and the passport’s validity period and number, will be stored encrypted on a chip. The chip will be developed by Infineon Technologies AG.

Starting no later than March 2007, fingerprints of each of the bearer’s index fingers will also be stored in an encrypted form. Current plans call for the chip to be invisibly integrated in the front cover.