Indians flying to various destinations across North America and Europe can hope to go through speedy and hasslefree immigration clearance soon as the Centre on 24th June launched the issuance of machine-reading e-passports — better known as bio-metric passports.

The e-passport contains an electronic contactless chip embedded in the passport booklet and the chip will have all the personal data such as facial bio-metrics, signature, name, nationality,date of birth etc of the passport holder. It is also proposed to add the epassport holder’s fingerprints to this data in the ordinary passport category.

But more importantly, the e-passport will provide a higher level of protection against fraudulent misuse and tampering and remove scope for holding more than one passport. Authenticity of the e-passports can be easily verified by the immigration authorities in airports across the world and thus help in quick immigration clearance.

Post 9/11, the US, Canada and countries across Europe have introduced rigorous security check systems in immigration clearance because of the fear of terrorism. Indians flying to destinations in these countries have been at the receiving end, with their bonafides being questioned.

The Ministry of External Affairs has drawn up a programme for the full roll out of e-passports in the ordinary passport category by September 2009. But all new passport applicants and those applying for reissue in the category of diplomatic and official passports will be issued e-passports from next month.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee marked the launch of the epassport by presenting the first diplomatic e-passport to President Pratibha Patil in Rashtrapati Bhawan.

So for 41 countries, mostly in Europe and America, have introduced e-passports.

Features
The new passports have an electronic chip containing all personal data
They help reduce procedures at immigration
Compatible with international standards and identity cards
Protect against fraud and security breaches

Source: DH