A recurring media story over the past half year has been that “a person’s identity can be stolen from new biometric passports”, which are “easy to clone” and therefore “not fit for purpose”. Most of these reports began with a widely quoted presentation by Lukas Grunwald in Las Vegas in August 2006, and continued with a report in the Guardian last November and one in this week’s Daily Mail on experiments by Adam Laurie.
I have closely followed the development of the ISO/ICAO standards for the biometric passport back in 2002/2003. In my view, the worries behind this media coverage are mainly based on a deep misunderstanding of what a “biometric passport” really is. The recent reports bring nothing to light that was not already well understood, anticipated and discussed during the development of the system more than four years ago. (more…)