What is e-passport?
During her Union Budget speech on February
1st, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the government’s plan on the
issuance of e-passports embedded
with an electronic chip in order to enhance convenience for citizens in their
overseas travel.
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According to the proposal, the e-passport will be a combination of paper and
electronic passport, with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip. An
antenna will be embedded as an inlay in the back cover.
The passport’s critical information will be stored in the chip and
printed on the data page. The characteristics of the e-passport are specified
by the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United
Nations.
The government clarified that data of the citizens obtained for
e-passport will be used only for the purposes of issuance of the passport and
related services. There will not be any secondary use of the data, thereby
safeguarding privacy concerns.
Further transaction processes are authenticated by digital
certificates and are cryptographically signed. Once captured, the data is
stored in a secured industry-standard database. The Security Operations Centre
will perform relevant database security-related controls round the clock.
The government is currently testing sample e-passports with the
full-scale manufacture and issuance set to commence following completion of the
technical ecosystem and infrastructure.
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