German chip maker Infineon Technologies will supply chips for new electronic passports that the United States will begin issuing in the coming weeks.
Of the 15 million e-passports to be issued by the end of the year, several million of them will be equipped with Infineon chips, the manufacturer said Monday.
The first wave of U.S. passports with chips, however, comes despite lingering privacy and security concerns. Earlier this month, a German security expert at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas demonstrated how e-passports—equipped with a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip containing biometric data—could be copied using a laptop computer, an RFID reader and smart card reader software.
The chip contained in each new U.S. passport issued starting in October will contain personal data, such as the bearer’s name, date of birth, validity period and a digital photo of the individual.
The e-passport, according to Infineon, is designed with multiple security levels, including the basic access control. This security feature requires the border control inspector to pass the document over a scanner that reads coded information and then authorizes the electronic reader to access the data stored on the chip. Data transmission occurs over a distance of only about 4 inches, or 10 centimeters.
More than 50 individual security mechanisms are inside the Infineon chip, including sophisticated computing methods for encrypting data. Protective shields on the surface of the chip and sensors also help prevent unauthorized people from being able to read the contents of the chip.
Infineon, located in Munich, is supplying chips for e-passport to several other countries, including Germany, Norway and Sweden.
-John Blau, IDG News Service (Dusseldorf Bureau)
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Infineon wins order for U.S. passport chips
Infineon Technologies, the German maker of semiconductors, said Monday it had won an order from the U.S. State Department to supply security chips for a new electronic U.S. passport.
The U.S. government will start giving the new passport to its citizens this year and plans to issue about 15 million electronic passports within the first year of its use, Infineon said in an e-mailed statement. Some U.S. diplomats and other government workers have already received the new passport.
The company's chip will be implanted in the back cover of the new passport, and it will store the same information that is printed inside the document, like name, birth date and period of validity.
The company had to "successfully pass some of the most stringent security tests in the world" to get the order from the U.S. State Department, it said in the release. Günter Gaugler, a company spokesman, declined to give financial details. (Bloomberg)