E-passports spread to half the globe

Nearly half of all United Nations (U.N.) member states are now issuing biometric e-passports (Contactless News)

CAO estimates that as of July 2011, these 93 states have issued more than 345 million e-passports, of which almost 340 million are in circulation.

As per ICAO specifications, each of these documents contains a contactless integrated circuit chip that stores biometric data–i.e. facial, fingerprint or iris–of the passport holder as well as other encrypted identification data. Forty-five of the e-passport issuing states store both fingerprint and facial data on their documents, while 34 store only the facial data. The remaining 14 states currently use facial data, but will begin including fingerprints by the end of 2011.

Article, maps & stats at the link.