Smartphones may soon replace your passports
Picture courtesy: Rick Steves
Soon it will be possible for you to travel through an airport without documents of any kind, not even the passport.
Britain-based commercial banknote printer and passport manufacturer, De La Rue, is working on a technology that can store “paperless passports” in smartphones.
The technology may spell the end for paper passports by allowing you to use your smartphone at immigration control.
However, the potential for forgery, global barriers and the distinct possibility of losing one’s smartphone mean the security challenges present big hurdles.
Digital passports on your phone will require new hardware on the device in order to securely store the electronic passport so it cannot be copied from the phone. It will also have to be communicated wirelessly to passport readers, because doing it onscreen like an airline ticket QR code can be copied or spoofed.
The technology to embed passports into smartphones is already under the testing mode.
