After Germany, UK, Finland, Norway, Bangladesh and others, India too has announced to issue e-passport from 2022-23. The new passport will be equipped with embedded chip and futuristic technology. The Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affair Nirmala Sitharaman has announced to roll out e-Passports while tabling the Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament on February 1. Earlier, Sanjay Bhattacharya, secretary, Ministry of External Affairs had announced that India to soon introduce next-gen ePassport for citizens.
Here are the key facts you need to know about the e-passport
The Ministry will issue chip-enabled e-Passports with advanced security features to citizens. The personal particulars of the applicants would be digitally signed and stored in the chip which would be embedded in the passport booklet. In case, anyone tampers with the chip, the system shall be able to identify it, resulting in the failure of the passport authentication.
e-passport will have secure biometric data and that will be in tune with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), United Nations. It looks like a regular passport.
The passport will be produced at India Security Press (ISP), Nashik. It will procure International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)-compliant electronic contactless inlays along with its operating system necessary for chip-enabled e-Passports.
Issuance of e-Passports will commence on the successful completion of the procurement process by ISP, Nashik.
The idea of e-passport was announced by external affairs minister S Jaishankar.
The first e-passport, with biometric details, was issued to former President Pratibha Patil in 2008.
The biometric passports are currently issued by more than 150 countries including Germany, UK and Bangladesh.
The e-passport will put a curb on circulation of fake passport as it is believed to have better security features, making it difficult for fraudsters to tamper with the information stored. Besides, the microchip will help immigration counters to quickly verify details of a traveller.
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