What Is a Biometric Passport: A Chip Skimmed From 14 Inches

What Is a Biometric Passport: A Chip Skimmed From 14 Inches

Full Episode Transcript

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Your passport has a tiny chip inside it that won't say a word until it's powered up by a reader.

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Researchers have shown that someone with a homemade

But researchers have shown that someone with a homemade reader can sometimes wake that chip up from farther away than you'd ever expect.

One skimming device was built for less than a hundred dollars, and it worked from about thirty-five centimeters away.

If you've ever stood in a customs line with your passport in your back pocket, this is about you.

And if the words "chip" and "passport" in the same sentence make you uneasy, that's a fair reaction.

Most of what people fear about these chips isn't true.

But one piece of the worry is real, and it's not the piece most people picture.

We'll look at what's actually stored on that chip, what keeps it from being forged, and where the genuine weak spot sits.

So what's really inside your passport?

Start with the contents.

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A biometric passport carries a small chip that

A biometric passport carries a small chip that holds a digital copy of your photo.

It also holds the same details printed on your photo page: your name, date of birth, and place of birth.

Some countries add fingerprints or iris scans.

But according to the published technical overviews, the U.S. passport chip stores only your photo, your printed information, and the machine-readable lines at the bottom of the page.

No fingerprints. No iris scan.

So it's far less than the "everything about you" image many people carry around.

Because an international standard, known as I.C.A.O. Doc ninety-three-oh-three, makes a digital Facial Recognition Wa Police Scan 1 4m Faces Arrest 122 image mandatory in every biometric passport.

That gives every border agency in the world one common thing to compare against your face at the gate.

The chip can hold up to thirty-two kilobytes, which leaves room for more data someday.

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The hardware was built with future expansion in mind

So the hardware was built with future expansion in mind.

For most of us, that means the chip is closer to a digital copy of the page you already show a stranger at the border than to a secret dossier.

Now, how do officials know the chip hasn't been tampered with?

The data on it is sealed with a digital signature from the country that issued it.

Change a single byte, and that signature stops checking out.

A printed page can be altered by a skilled forger.

This seal is a different kind of problem.

It's expensive and difficult to fake, as long as a country sets it up correctly.

And not every country does.

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Next comes the question everyone asks

Next comes the question everyone asks.

Is the chip constantly broadcasting where you are?

There's no battery inside your passport.

The chip only comes alive when a reader sends out energy and powers it.

It works like the tap-to-pay card in your wallet.

People believe the tracking-beacon story because the early warnings used phrases like "continuously broadcasting," and that wording sounds like a tiny radio transmitter.

There's also a lock on the door.

A reader has to scan the printed code on your photo page first, before the chip will give up anything.

So nobody can quietly pull your data out of a closed passport in a crowd, at least not with an ordinary reader.

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Where's the real weak spot

So where's the real weak spot?

Official readers are designed to work within a few centimeters.

But, according to security researchers, someone willing to build their own reader, and ignore radio rules, can stretch that range.

Passport cards were reportedly scanned from as far as a hundred and fifty feet.

And in trials back in October of two thousand four, researchers showed that someone could eavesdrop on a legitimate reader talking to a chip from about thirty feet.

That's a different trick from skimming, but the outcome feels the same.

Someone gets your data without you knowing.

For the rest of us, that doesn't mean panic.

It means the chip is a locked box with a short-range key, and the real argument is over how short that range stays.

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