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Azerbaijan will start switching biometric passports from next year

06 March 2009 16:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Aynur Veliyeva â€“ APA-Economics. The 188 countries belonging to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency, agreed that all member countries must start issuing machine readable biometrically enabled e-Passports before April 1, 2010.
The ICAO standard specifies Common Biometric Exchange File Format (CBEFF) as the globally interoperable biometric for identity verification in travel documents. Thus e-passports will contain digitally signed photographic images of the faces of their bearers. The ICAO standard additionally specifies fingerprints and iris data as optional biometrics.
Azerbaijan will implement this process as part of the State Program for Biometric Identity System (2007-2012).
The ICAO defines the biometric identification as a verification of human identity through the measurement of distinguishing physiological or behavioural characteristics. The ICAO only considers three types of biometrics: facial recognition, fingerprint and iris scan. Only facial recognition is mandatory.
According to the ICAO, the chip will store as a minimum the data contained on the first page of the passport and a digital image of the passport’s holder. The chip may also contain optional information such as handwritten signatures, finger print, address, phone number, and may indicate information about other people namely the person to notify in case of emergency.
Formally, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification technology relying on wireless communication, using special devices called tags. Any RFID system essentially consists of two main components: tags (transponders) and readers (transceivers).
The computational capabilities of tags depend on the target application. Tags may be a simple memory between 32 and 128 bits (tracking products and animals) up to a chip containing a microprocessor. In the case of electronic passport, the data storage capacity of the IC is a minimum of 32 KB, as specified by the ICAO, . Inin order to store the mandatory facial image and duplication of the MRZ data. States planning to store additional information must provide memories of much large capacity (70 KB). Besides, the passport chip contains a microprocessor in order to be able to accomplish complex cryptographic computations. As recommended by the ICAO the Belgian passport, for example, implements 3DES, SHA-1, and RSA. High-cost RFID tag is sometimes called contact-less chip or smart card instead, as in the case of electronic passport.
As for RFID readers they vary a lot according to the target application. Nowadays, passport readers are mainly available in governmental inspection systems on borders and airports. In the future, they may be found in airelines compagnies and hotels.
The electronic chip required by the ICAO must conform to ISO/IEC 14443 A/B, already adopted in other applications (smart cards); Belgian passport uses ISO/IEC 14443 A. One interesting property of this standard is that its maximum reading range is less than 10 cm. In fact, many researchers claim to be able to read a passport from a larger distance. In our attack we used a low-cost commercial reader without trying to go that direction.

64KB memory necessary in most cases
Ã³ 32KB is the minimum requirement by ICAO
Ã³ Storage of administrative data and primary biometric identifier (facial picture)
Ã³ 64KB allows the storage of optional biometric identifiers (fingerprint, iris)