After the successful trial run of 20,000 e-passports issued to officials and diplomats, all Indian citizens were expected to get e-passports from 2021.
Those Indians who are looking for a reissuance of passport in the coming year or want to apply for a new one. The government of India all set to give e-travel papers from 2021. This cutting-edge step will follow the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) principles. Every one of the 36 visa workplaces in India under the Ministry of External Affair will begin giving these soon. These e-passports will be tougher, as well as harder to destroy.
Biometric Passport or e-Passport
Currently, the Indian passport is in a booklet format, require a device to read the information and these traditional passports are easy to forge.
A biometric passport is like a traditional paper passport, with an embedded silicon microchip that holds the personal information of the passport holder, as well as photograph. An e-passport uses Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) and biometrics of the passenger or passport holder. An embedded microchip with an internationally recognized logo meant for e-passports will hold all the vital information of the passport holder. It will be able to forestall unauthorized data transfer through RFID. The chip will be able to store data on up to 30 international visits.
This move might reduce the forgery as e-passports will be difficult to forge and help faster immigration for the passengers.
With these, e-passports you can expect quicker processing times at all major airports because of higher levels of automation at all counters, from immigrations areas to security checks. The microchip includes the passport holder’s essential information like name and date of birth, profile image, and even fingerprints and iris biometrics, and this information can communicate to airport authorities and officials.
Traditional passports are comparatively easier to counterfeit, but the enciphered data in an e-passport, along with security measures like complex watermarks and microtext, are difficult to replicate. During this pandemic time, it is a very important and significant feature of e-passport that there is no need of physical contact to verify the passenger’s credentials.
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